Eilidh Slattery
Eilidh Slattery is a Lecturer in Arts Education at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), a leading voice in dance education across Scotland, and an active researcher in teacher professional learning. Her research focuses on supporting primary teachers to develop their use of dance and creative movement, ensuring children and young people have equitable access to dance education.
Eilidh trained as a dancer and dance teacher, gaining qualifications with the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) and Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD). After teaching in diverse contexts, she gained her BEd (Honours) in Primary Education and MEd in Learning and Teaching in the Performing Arts. In the primary school context, she held roles of class teacher, specialist teacher (dance), principal teacher, and acting headteacher, whilst delivering professional learning and guest lecturing on Initial Teacher Education programmes. She joined RCS in 2019, where she teaches on the PG Cert and MEd Learning and Teaching in the Arts programmes.
Eilidh secured competitive funding to conduct a large-scale research project exploring dance education experiences of 211 primary teachers. Her rigorous 2022 report has become a foundational resource, directly informing national policy and leading to new initiatives disseminated through conferences and publications. In response to her research, Eilidh established the Primary Dance Network Scotland, a national network supporting primary teachers with dance education, connecting teachers quarterly for professional dialogue. She provides bespoke professional learning to schools and serves on Education Scotland’s Collaborative Group for the Expressive Arts, shaping national curricular documentation.
Her actively developing research portfolio demonstrates her determination to rigorously underpin dance-specific teacher professional learning. She regularly presents at national and international conferences and engages in ongoing empirical studies characterised by participatory approaches that currently focuses on centring teachers’ voices. As an active daCi (dance and the Child International) member, she contributes research and advocacy work to the international dance education community.