About NDTA - Carolyn Woolridge - A tribute

It is with great sadness that we are writing this tribute to Carolyn Woolridge, Acting Chair of the NDTA, who died suddenly on Tuesday, 18 August 2009 while away on holiday in France.

Many members of the dance, arts and physical education world attended her funeral in September where she was described as ‘highly creative, meticulous, hardworking, committed, a perfectionist, as well as very caring, supportive
and a woman who had huge impact on the lives of others’. She was an exceptional person with unique drive and passion, who was totally committed to dance in education. However, Carolyn was not always interested in dance.

She was born in 1945, the daughter of a Baths and Swimming Pool Superintendent, and spent her early years in Bristol, London and Manchester. Her father’s daughter, she swam competitively at county standard until she went
to teacher training college in Ormskirk, studying PE and drama. Carolyn’s first teaching job was at Joseph Leckie Secondary School in Walsall where she was promoted to Assistant Head of the Lower School and where she met
her husband Phil who was teaching history there.

When her children were small Carolyn gave up teaching full time but worked part time, teaching swimming and then taught at Queen Mary’s High School, Walsall. Her passion for dance developed a little later when she took an Advanced Diploma in Dance Education course for teachers at Derby Lonsdale College of Higher Education (now the University of Derby) taught by Jacqueline Smith-Autard. After completing the course she was offered the job of teaching it. From there she built a dance degree programme at the University of Derby, writing an innovative new diploma course for dance artists in education. On leaving the University of Derby, she took on a range of consultancy work, mostly connected to the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, first at Northern School of Contemporary Dance and then more broadly across the Conservatoire as a higher education adviser, helping to write bids, degree programmes and crucially leading on quality assurance.

Carolyn became involved in the NDTA very early in its development. In 1991, Jacqueline Smith-Autard recommended her to be Treasurer even though, as she later confessed, she was hopeless at maths. Despite this potential handicap she steered the NDTA financially for many years until she became Vice Chair, taking over from Veronica Jobbins as Acting Chair in 2008. The early years of the NDTA were hard work as the Executive Committee had to do everything themselves: write letters, attend endless meetings, argue ferociously with government officers and attempt to build the membership of the NDTA to support those teaching dance in schools at whatever phase. Carolyn used to describe the NDTA at that time as a cottage industry as we ran the NDTA from our own homes, alongside our paid jobs and family commitments. Carolyn’s family were very used to stuffing envelopes and answering the phone to
NDTA members.

It was only in 2004 that the NDTA moved into its own office in Lichfield. Over the last 20 years Carolyn devoted a huge part of her life to ensuring that the NDTA fulfilled its role as the subject association for dance in schools. She was zealous in defending the place of dance in schools and we all remember long phone calls late at night, discussing the latest curriculum initiative and its potential impact on dance in schools. Her many skills and deep knowledge of dance and education were used to good effect as she helped shape NDTA policy and many influential dance education documents. Without her tireless commitment dance would not have the place it holds in schools today and the continuing success of the NDTA is in no small measure due to her hard work and dedication.

Carolyn loved dance in all its many forms. She enjoyed dancing herself and going to dance performances but above all she was a passionate advocate for dance in schools, being deeply committed to the value of dance for children and young people.

We will miss her, not only as a colleague but as a loved and valued friend.
Carolyn left her daughter Katherine, who is working as a dance teacher in the Midlands, her son Mike and husband Phil.

Judy Evans, Acting Chair, NDTA

Veronica Jobbins, Head of Professional and
Community Development, Laban, and former Chair, NDTA