A school dance team are moving to the next level after impressing in a series of competitions.

A team from Willowpark Primary Academy will take part in the SOAR Super Weekender in Birmingham in November, a dancing convention with more than 15,000 dancers.

It will also take part in the SOAR British Championships next year.

SOAR is a dancing events company which works to provide the chance for young dancers and the urban dance community to connect with the wider world by hosting competitions and performances.

Assistant headteacher at Willow Park, Tom Owen, said: "The most important thing, for me, is we've got children into a dance environment that never would have had the opportunity otherwise.

"They didn't even know they could be really good at it, and now we've got children who are really growing in confidence, not just with performing in front of hundreds of people, but through their school work and just their general confidence."

The dance team secured second place in December 2023The dance team secured second place in December 2023 (Image: Willow Park Primary Academy)

Most recently, the team managed to finish third at Iconic Street Dance in Stoke on June 2. 

Before this, they had placed second on December 10 at the same competition in Bury.

Mr Owen said the team is unique in their competitions and said that, to his knowledge, they are the only primary school competing at the professional competitions as opposed to dance academies. 

The school began their dancing ambitions around five years ago, when they employed Lauren Harrop, a professional dancer, to teach the children one day a week.

Mr Owen said: "As more and more children started showing promise for dance, we came up with the idea as to whether to attend the professional weekend competitions, as opposed to the few and far between school competitions on offer.

"We've attended nine or 10 competitions now with our best result being second which is amazing!"

"It's given the opportunity to children who, for whatever reason, wouldn't have been able to dance outside of school to get professional tuition and experience the professional environment which is quite rare for a school to do that. 

"One of the organisers at the last SOAR competition emailed us out of the blue and said it was really inspiring to see a primary school compete because the other dance troops have at least three times weekly evening sessions.

"We only get one afternoon a week and he said he felt really inspired by it and said if we'd like any support from him then that would be an avenue and we were invited to the national competition [Super Weekender] in November- which I think is really, really good."