Here are some guidelines to help you use and make the most of your Licence with Dance Notes. If there’s anything you can’t find, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Logging In
In the top menu of the Dance Notes site, you will see ‘Log-In’ (on mobile devices, it may be within a drop-down list). Click on this and enter your username – or registered email address – and password.
The username is displayed on your Licence Certificate and a reminder can be requested by email. If you have forgotten your password, scroll down to below the log-in and click the ‘Lost Your Password?‘ link. You will then be directed to a page where you can reset it.
Once logged in, find a plan of your choice, via ‘Lessons’ in the top menu. Alternatively, if you have come to the Log-In via a specific lesson’s page, click on the ‘<< Back‘ link. This will take you to the page from which you navigated (you may need to click twice).
Stream a Lesson
If you have navigated to a lesson page before logging in, you will see the message ‘Licence Holders, please Log-In to stream or download’ beneath the image. Once logged in, this message is replaced with the Lesson Player
Directly beneath the image, you will see three buttons. The first is the ‘Open Lesson’ button. If you are on a PC or laptop, this will open the plan in a new tab of your browser. On a tablet or mobile, the document will normally be downloaded. You may then open it using your device’s default pdf reader.
Download a Lesson
The ‘Lesson Download’ button will deliver the scheme document in the form of a zip file.
Once downloaded, you will need to extract the file. How you do this will depend on your device. Apps are readily available online should you not already have one installed. Most devices will automatically put this into a dedicated ‘Downloads’ folder. It is strongly recommended you store your Dance Notes files in a separate location for easy location and future retrieval.
Please note, whereas the Supporting Documents folder was previously included with each individual lesson, this is now a separate download. We’ll come to that shortly.
Downloading Music
For some teachers, having saved copies of the tracks will be preferable. This will give you flexibility as to how you then choose to play them.
Simply click on the ‘Music Download’ button, as illustrated. This will download a zip file to your device’s default storage (normally a folder called ‘downloads’). As before, this is in zip format and you will need an appropriate app to retrieve the files.
Once again, it is strongly advised you move the downloaded folder to a dedicated location for your Dance Notes plans. That way, you (and other staff – if you have a school licence) can easily retrieve them in future. As a licence holder, you may also download further copies, should you need them.
Audio Player
The audio section of the lesson player gives you a media bar for each of a lesson’s tracks. Simply click or tap to trigger a track when needed.
You can interrupt one track with another, which is useful when working through a dance that uses several pieces of music. Just start the new track and the one that was playing will stop automatically. When you return to a track, it will continue to play from where you previously left off. Should you wish to start again from the beginning, simply swipe from right to left along the bar (if you have a touch screen) or refresh the page.
Supporting Docs
As previously mentioned, supporting documents were originally contained within each lesson download.
However, since these are the same for every plan, they are now presented in a separate folder. This can be downloaded using the button beneath the audio player section. The individual documents may also be found within the Lesson menu, under ‘Bonus Materials’
Again, be sure to save these to a safe and easy-to-find location for future retrieval.
Music CDs
Holders of a Full School or Partnership licence may request CDs on a termly basis at no extra cost (subject to reasonable limits).
To give us enough time to prepare and distribute your CDs, please let us know during the term before they are needed. If you prefer to provide a list for the whole year, we can diarise what you have requested for each term and send accordingly.
Bonus Materials
The Supporting Docs are part of a selection of Bonus Materials for licence holders. These comprise documents to help with: assessment; attainment targets and recording; dance interpretation; etc. In addition, you will find links in the Bonus Materials sub-menu for ‘Kwik KS1’ and ‘Kwik KS2’.
The Kwik lessons are a legacy from an earlier incarnation of Dance Notes. But you may find them useful for present-day work with your pupils. Each is a single-unit, as opposed to the 6-week schedules presented in the full plans. As such, you may want to use them for one-off dance sessions or combined to create your own dance activity over a term.
Updating Your Account
It is important to let us know of any changes to your account, especially your contact information. Inevitably, staff will move on, email addresses will be updated and your school may even change its name.
Ideally, contact us by email to let us know of any changes that may occur. That way, we can be sure to keep you informed of new materials and remind you when your subscription is due. Your details will never be shared and are only used for these purposes.
You can check what details we have on record by clicking on ‘Account’ in the Log-in drop-down menu. If you are not already logged in, you will be prompted to do so. Then, you will see a page titled ‘Your Licence Details’.
Here, you will find four headings: ‘Subscriptions’, ‘Edit Profile’, ‘Payments & Invoices’ and ‘Logout’. Click on a heading to view the relevant information. If you do update any information via this page or want us to change anything, please also contact us by email to let us know.
Anything Missing?
Remember, Dance Notes is designed to be a flexible and responsive resource. If you find there is a topic you need that’s not already within the lessons library, please let us know. Provided it is of interest to a sufficient number of schools, we will create a plan to order and add that to the collection.
Please be aware that this doesn’t happen overnight. A lot of work goes into planning, creating and formatting each plan. And then the associated web page and download files need to be constructed. So, ideally, we would like to be asked for a new plan during the term before it is needed.
Need More Help?
The Dance Notes schemes aim to be usable by all staff, whether experienced in leading dance or not. We have striven to make them as self-explanatory and simple to follow as possible. Hopefully, the supporting documents will provide what you need beyond the lesson content itself.
However, we appreciate you may still have questions that need answering. So, your licence provides full email support. And, where necessary, one of our lesson developers can give you a call back to discuss matters in more detail.
Don’t Have a Licence?
Well, now you know what you’ve been missing! To set up your licence and get access to all the resources immediately, go now to the Licence Registration page and fill in the details. Once completed, you will be able to get started right away.
Subscription with recurring payments provides even better value for your budget. You can do this using either a credit/debit card or PayPal. Both annual and monthly subscription plans are available.
If, like most schools, you need to be invoiced, that’s absolutely fine. Select this option during registration and you will still have immediate access to everything. Any difficulty at all, just let us know and we’ll be glad to help.