Our intended community is reaching the learning disability community, and/or those who identify as neurodivergent, and our dancers supporting network of families and carers. This year of 2025-26 was our third year of trading. We believe that dance enables a powerful and universal language, as well as life expanding opportunities. We are deeply passionate about sharing our wealth of expertise in providing accessible and inclusive experiences. We began the year running 2 weekly activities, and completing 3 courses in Dance Leadership for people with learning disabilities. We finished the year with 6 weekly group classes, a 1-1 child’s session, and a parents and carers committee, all of which are thriving for the year ahead. Here are some statistics supporting the impact and reach of our weekly classes, projects and events. We will begin by exploring our participatory opportunities, and then we will look at our vocational and portfolio building opportunities that we have provided, with our endless gratitude to our funders and participants, for enabling our community led vision to materialise. WE DELIVERED 179 WEEKLY DANCE CLASSES VOCATIONAL AND PORTFOLIO BUILDING OPPORTUNITIES 3x 8 week courses in Dance Leadership completed for dancers with Learning Disabilities 13 Dance Leaders with disabilities completed our 8 week training program and were awarded certificates (4 teenagers who were aged 15-19 years old, 9 adults aged 20-34 years old) 9 Dance Leaders continued to work with us, being mentored and supervised by Lydia and Sarah to lead weekly classes, events and projects throughout the year, with 14 recorded 1-1 supervisions held by our year end Training and planning - we held 37 2.5 hour weekly planning and training sessions, privately funded by Harry Fairchild. We also held 5 meetings for other leaders to plan their ideas.. 7 community based performances, worked towards for several months of rehearsals by members of our weekly classes: 7 individual artists collaborated with: 1. Vanessa Sergeant who trades as “Rhyme N Shine” who we employed to run workshops at The Far Far Away Musical, and weekly at Dreams as singing teacher. Dreams began as a weekly class in May 2025. 2. Lisa Pearcey - a dance facilitator who had volunteered with us weekly from our very first ever session in March 2023, we began employing as a freelancer to provide support to us at The Far Far Away Musical (our busiest class) from March 2025 onwards. We have also employed her to support us at our performances, training sessions and events. From November 2025, onwards she has also been employed to work weekly at Out There Dance. 3. Tom Cook - freelance musician and filmmaker who has been working with us regularly to film our work and interview our dancers to make a film about our organisation. He has been attending our sessions since October 2025. He has given our community skills in talking about the work we do, and what it means to them, and has built their confidence in speaking on camera. 4. Joe Bolingbroke - who trades as “Rainboy” - a neurodivergent gay singer and dancer, who taught us Steps routines twice at The Far Far Away Musical and Jazz Hands Dance. 5. Andrew Self - a celebrity and professional dancer with Down Syndrome, and family friend of Harry’s, who visited our Sunday sessions three times when he visited Harry. 6. Georgina Allen - a professional singer who has led two voluntary singing classes with us at Dreams. 7. Alison Dilworth - one of our parent carer committee members, has used her artistic skills to voluntarily create many visual aids, used frequently by our dance leaders to be independent of our direct support to lead activities OUR MISSION AND VISION Right from the very beginning, our first ever session was led by Harry Fairchild, a man with Down Syndrome. He named this “The Far Far Away Musical”. This year, Harry was joined by 8 new team members, all of which have been involved in leading our activities. This is all thanks to our funders The National Lottery - Community Fund, and The Chalk Cliff Trust, who have enabled us to make this year a dream come true. Delivering the leadership training was something Lydia and Sarah had been dreaming of, and working towards, for decades. The three training programs we led were highly valued, and very special experiences for all involved. We ensured following the training program, that our trained leaders were offered weekly classes and short term projects to lead within. This set us up to doubling our weekly sessions from 2 to 4 sessions in May 2025. Here is what has happened since: Shannon and Lily didn’t want to lead weekly at Fabulous Stars after completing their training. Instead, they have led sections of The Far Far Away Musical, and Jazz Hands Dance. Harry remained the main leader of The Far Far Away Musical. Harry has been a key member of the team from day one, and has been able to share his wealth of confidence and experience with the newer leaders, and multiple participants. Ella has led Dreams since May 2025. Lauren, Ellie, Larah, Eva and Ellen have shared the leadership of Fabulous Stars every week since May 2025. Out There Dance and Jazz Hands Dance have been led by Lydia and Sarah, although dance leaders and dancers have had many opportunities to lead and highly impact the content of these sessions. Lydia and Sarah also have many skills to bring, and these particular sessions have benefited by remaining to be guided by them. All of our dance leaders have had opportunities to lead within our short term projects. THE DIFFERENCE ECHO PERFORMING ARTS MAKE TO THE INDIVIDUALS WE WORK WITH We see importance in our impact by measuring the following four areas through our schemes of work, planning, assessment, and through our interventions, intentions and strategies. We also sought evidence of these areas through our case studies below. These four areas are written below, with examples of what we provided and discovered for this year: 1. Impact on social and emotional well-being - we value this as impact, because our community is at significantly higher risk of isolation than the mainstream community. Our activity aims to provide genuine, unbiased human connection. We offered group, online, and 1-to-1 dance classes tailored to individual social and geographic needs, fostering connections among peers, session leaders, and parents or carers. Beyond classes, we hosted social gatherings, where members experienced a true sense of community. We encourage peer-to-peer interaction through creative dance projects and performances, which regularly lead to friendships and meaningful social links. Many members now meet independently, highlighting the strength of these bonds. Feedback and surveys consistently recognise the positive impact of our social emphasis. Our community benefits from committed weekly classes, where each member’s presence is valued and noticed. We recognise that social belonging can have very different meanings for everyone within our neurodiverse community. We focus on inclusion without pressure, and we do not enforce neurotypical social expectations on anyone. In essence, we value belonging as much as the dance itself. 2. Impact on fitness, and increased ability within dance - We value this impact, as it helps people achieve their full potential in dance. As one of the few art forms that is also a sport, dance offers vital health benefits for all. Developing individual dance ability, and also by ensuring leadership is maintained by people with disabilities, means we actively break down societal discrimination, as we explore the endless possibilities within this community. We have ensured each session provides a warm up, dance activities and a cool down, to ensure safe and holistic practice. This year, we introduced new footwork and spatial awareness strategies, including our very own “tightrope” activity to develop posture, precision, balance, and directional travel. We use tape and coloured floor dots to map footwork patterns. These tools also support creative choreography and performance planning for our Dance Leaders to design and support their participants learning needs. We have observed significant improvements in participants’ mobility and confidence, fostered through time, connection, and engagement with dancers and their families or carers. Case studies below explore these developments further. 3. Impact on individual communication - We value this, as our community face many communication barriers, largely imposed by environments and lack of understanding from society. Many people rely on support to express their needs and desires. Developing this in our sessions has potential to benefit many other aspects of their lives. We have collaborated with individuals, parents, carers and engaged, to engage with ensuring our dancers and dance leaders are developing their communication in person centred ways. We have seen unbelievably powerful progression through time and repetition, which is an honour to observe and facilitate. We provide communication aids, and multi sensory approaches to communication within every class. We provide linear visual aids that explain in an accessible format what we are doing today. We also provide communication aids within feedback. We support our dancers to attend social occasions, events and performances outside of our weekly routines with visual and accessible information, and liaise with their families/carers to ensure they can be supported to attend these opportunities effectively and in a person centred way. We believe in promoting independence and nurturing self confidence. We ensure we actively seek as much control for our members as possible. 4. Impact on creativity and problem solving - we value this as an area of impact, because this community are often protected from “challenges”, which means they are not being given enough opportunity to use certain areas of their brain. Engaging with problem solving can protect people from many set backs later on in their lives, and stimulates them to be active and responsive learners. Creativity is about people expressing their culture, their identity and their way of seeing the world. We don’t just want to discover these insights - we want to help them communicate this to the world around them through our creative work. We actively explore the motivations, interests and ideas each person brings to Echo Performing Arts. We balance this with ensuring we can introduce new ideas and themes to inspire people outside of their existing field of awareness, often finding people can surprise us with their creativity and input while exploring new stimuli. Engaging in dance technique engages the brain in problem solving, while actively developing muscle memory, stamina and coordination - it is a journey of practice and determination. We have seen a positive response as dancers engage in receiving and implementing constructive feedback, alongside being supported in ways that mean the environment is meeting their learning styles and needs. Our rehearsals for shows are a perfect opportunity within challenging our dancers, where we will push people to expand and refine their potential within a set period of time, working towards an end goal, and a treasured memory. We communicate in direct contact with individuals where barriers arise. We like to explore these, and look at what we can do within the environment to support individuals to overcome these barriers to learning, engagement or emotional / physical well-being. CASE STUDIES “What it means to dance with Lydia and Sarah it means to dance with them is partnership. Honest and equal And i am really lucky that i danced with them too at first week at dance i kinda Thought they were good Educators And good female teachers they could teach us empowerment as a women” - Eleanor Grace - Dance Leader for Echo Performing Arts “My daughter Ella has longed to dance her entire life. Ella has extremely complex physical, learning and medical needs. She requires 2:1 care 24/7. She is a wheelchair user, has limited movement and is non-speaking and registered blind. Ella's involvement with Echo Performing Arts has been transformative. A great deal of her week is structured around dance classes, and she now plans and leads her own dance class, Dreams, every Thursday morning at Saltdean Lido. The class is small but well attended. This has provided Ella with the opportunity to have a voluntary job that she loves, a sense of agency in her life and more importantly is a space in which she leads and is listened to by the group. Being given the chance to set up and lead a dance class by Sarah and Lydia, has meant Ella now has a sense of purpose and focus in her life. And more importantly she now has a voice. Ella is non-speaking due to her cerebral palsy and uses an augmentative and alternative communication system (AAC) to plan the sessions and to communicate with the dancers during sessions. This has helped her develop her communication skills. She is now receiving input from her speech and language therapist and a specialist communication service on how to develop her AAC system further so that she is able to use it more effectively in her role. Ella takes her role as a dance leader very seriously and enjoys planning the activities, choosing the music and is developing her skills through supervision and support from Sarah and Lydia at Echo Performing Arts. This has given Ella a huge boost in her confidence, her sense of self and her perception of her abilities and what she can achieve. Ella has limited movement as a result of cerebral palsy and through her dance practice she is developing her ability to move and her range of movement has increased. She enjoys being part of a strong and vibrant dance community, and a friendship group through Echo Performing Arts. Usually someone like Ella is seldom seen out and about in the community. It is rare to see a person with complex and multiple disabilities playing a key role in an event or activity. With the ongoing support and structure that she receives from Echo Performing Arts, Ella is thriving and she challenges people's perceptions of what a person with multiple disabilities can do.” Andrea - Mother of Ella, Dance Leader for Echo Performing Arts “Joseph said that he likes dancing with people and he likes learning new dances. What I say is that in terms of emotional well-being, these sessions are very important to him. His only other regular group activity is Rocket artists on a Thursday morning. As regards to his physical fitness, I think he benefits from the fact that you warm-ups and warm downs encourage him to move more flexibly. He could do with more of this! Learning specific dance structures has been helping his mental alertness and improving his sense of rhythm, which is something he already has: your work with him is refining this. Thank you. x x x All of this is very important for his self-esteem. As regards to creativity, as you know, he spontaneously decided to create a life-size broom for the chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins. He has now worked in his rockets time to create something from Star Trek. I’m going to be picking this up soon and I’ll find out a bit more about it!!! Thank you both again for all that you do. Magnificent!” - Joseph, one of or dancers from Out There Dance, and his mother Nicola “Eleanor has significantly developed her confidence and self esteem when interacting with the public and with colleagues at dance sessions. she is a very kind and sensitive person, and is always ready to support others. Now, she has found her own ‘voice’ and developed a deeper sense of pride in her abilities as a dancer and leader since developing and training to be a dance leader - it is a lovely and inspiring thing to witness. Ellie has now danced and acted in several public performances - most recently in Brighton Fringe at the Festival, which has given her a heightened sense of well being and self belief she certainly didn’t have before dancing with Echo. Her regular supervisions with Sarah have been so helpful and special to Ellie, she has been supported compassionately at these progress reviews. Sarah’s holistic approach to Ellie’s SEMH has helped her feel safe, respected and encouraged. Dancing with Echo Performing Arts makes Ellie very happy. As part of Ellie’s role as a dance leader she has experienced regular planning sessions, workshops and supervision meetings and has led dance sessions online and in public venues. These opportunities present unique challenges for Ellie as a communicator. She has learnt to raise the volume of her voice with greater confidence, and can clearly express her feedback on sessions and give direction when leading parts of sessions - this is wonderful for me to see and I really appreciate the life skills she is learning at Echo. I have noticed Ellie is speaking out more often and more confidently at home, when asking for what she wants, and in sharing her opinions. Bravo!!! She is learning how to be part of a young team of dancers who now socialise together regularly and have such good chatty conversations which she never experienced before. Ellie’s community health officer observed Ellie had lost weight and seemed very happy since starting dance with Echo performing arts. Her dancing skills have totally blossomed- I am often moved to tears seeing the beauty in her careful extensions of arms and legs- or of flowing movements that change in a moment to wild energetic leaping and hip gyrations to jazz or funk- I had no idea she could dance so well and so feelingly- I’m so impressed with her skills ! Ellie often trouble shoots when someone withdraws and needs a little coaxing, and in working out dance routines, such as those that she designs for online dance classes which she co - leads with Lydia, and in choosing appropriate music and moves for general sessions. Attending Echo sessions three times a week has taught Ellie so much - and she genuinely enjoys planning and delivering new dance arrangements. Thank you so much for the wonderful support and opportunities you have given to Ellie, she is transformed and I am so so grateful to you.” - Heather, mother of Eleanor Grace Evan, Dance Leader for Echo Performing Arts

Our stakeholders fall under the following categories: 1. First are our dancers and dance leaders, who identify as having a learning disability, and/or are neurodivergent - their voices, culture, identity and creativity is what we value, and why we exist. 2. Our parents and carers - we observe and interact regularly with an incredibly proud and supportive network of parents and carers, that assist in the smooth running, problem solving and celebrations of what we do. We cannot do what we do without them - we spend a great deal of our time connecting with families and carers/PAs/care managers to foster positive, meaningful and cooperative relationships. 3. Our audience members of our performance work - some of which may have never seen this community perform before, thus tackling any negative societal views by providing performance work to the world around us, showcasing the culture and talents of our community. 4. Other artists and organisations - we ensure we work in exciting and innovative ways with other artists and organisations. We have fostered many cooperative working relationships to maximise opportunities for our community, and the wider community around us too. 5. Our online community of followers, who engage frequently with supportive feedback to what we share. We have involved our stakeholders in multiple ways: Quantitatively through: Monitoring and recording our impact and the people we work with Supporting and supervising our diverse leadership to plan, deliver and reflect on the content of our sessions, projects and events. Holding parent carer committee meetings bi-monthly, with online engagement from members in between meetings. All meetings are chaired, and minutes are taken by our committee members. Distribution of Stakeholder surveys Evidencing learning, experiences and engagement through regular use of film and photography (where consent is gained). Providing consent forms within our new starter forms, to ensure people are in control of their needs and wishes before we begin working together. Using schemes of work to plan and monitor progress within sessions Working collaboratively to plan sessions and performances. Termly 1-1 supervision meetings with each Dance Leader. Each supervision meeting is recorded and progress is monitored. Through keeping a record of compliments, feedback and complaints, and ensuring we use these to address our strategies, environments, relationships and creative work. We ensure thorough communication is provided in response to all three of these areas of our work, that must inform the activities we provide. Obtaining a robust safeguarding system, that ensures we care and support the welfare of our community members in a safe and person centred way. The individual(s) concerned are central, and procedures are followed inline with legislation. Qualitatively through: Each session gathering feedback from all group members, led by our Dance Leaders. We enable non-verbal communication using symbols, objects, and staff advocacy. This feedback informs our planning and guides our diverse leadership team. Use of accessible and visual information for participants around session content, and details about additional opportunities to perform on dates outside of their usual routine. Enabling leadership from our beneficiary group - by training dancers with disabilities to be the leaders and designers of our classes, who actively design the session content every week. Enabling and facilitating communication systems and multi sensory approaches, that mean we can gain valuable feedback from people who do not use words to communicate Taking active interest and recognition towards the culture of our community, and building the creative work in reflection of this.

We have two Directors, both of which were paid part time wages to lead and respond to the community we have initiated. There were no performance related pay awards to either Director. A total of £26,360 was awarded from our income via payroll to our two directors, this figure was divided between Lydia Hunt and Sarah Hamlett throughout the year -

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration