The School Workshops & Residencies program encompasses a number of programs designed to provide students and teachers with access to professional artists within their schools and local communities. The Workshop Program follows the target area and artform from the following year’s ConnectEd Arts activities, encouraging those students and teachers who have previously participated in a ConnectEd Arts program to integrate their experiences into their regular school environment.

The School Workshops & Residencies program builds on work already being done in this area by established arts organisations and artists, by supporting these organisations to expand their programming and deliver workshops to students and teachers in regional NSW. Where possible, the program also endeavours to strengthen connections between regional schools and their local arts institutions and organisations.

In 2006, Dance Nova presented a series of dance workshops for a select number of primary schools in Western Sydney. Dance Nova’s programs are entry level dance workshops, designed to encourage students to move and dance. Schools that participate in the workshop program will also be offered the opportunity to attend a free dance performance at Parramatta Riverside Theatres.

Following on from the workshop series, primary school teachers in the Western Sydney area were invited to participate in a professional development program led by two professional dance artists and designed in consultation with the NSW Department of Education.

The professional development program focussed on the teaching of the dance syllabus to primary school students, demonstrating how dance can be linked to other key learning areas. Run over 4 sessions, the workshop increased the skills of primary school teachers required to lead dance activities in the classroom.

These student and teacher workshops are part of a broader professional development initiative facilitated by Western Sydney Dance Action and designed to increase the skills of emerging dance artists in the delivery of dance workshops within a school context.

In the latter half of 2006, a series of in-school workshops were offered by professional dance and physical theatre practitioners to secondary schools in South East NSW. These workshops were complemented by an intensive professional development program for dance and drama teachers. These teacher workshops aimed to provide teachers with an insight into the professional practice of dance artists as well as providing them with new skills and renewed enthusiasm for their own creative practice and teaching methods.

The Workshop Program in South East NSW was developed as a follow-up initiative for students and teachers involved in the 2005 ConnectEd Arts Camp, which took place in Moruya in May 2005.

Monkey Baa delivered an in-school workshop program in theatre in Far West NSW in late 2006. The Workshop Program enhanced the experiences of students in Far West NSW who previously participated in ConnectEd Arts programs. The program incorporated a professional development component for teachers to integrate creative processes into the regular school environment.