Motivating boys through music and dance

What did the school want to achieve?

School improvement

The school wanted to tackle the problem of a core of demotivated, underachieving year 5 boys. The boys had a casual, uninvolved approach to many aspects of school life and the school wanted to improve their attitudes to learning. In particular, it wanted to see greater:

• confidence and commitment to work and task completion (eg more regular completion of homework);
• involvement in question-and-answer sessions;
• sense of achievement.

The school also wanted to improve the behaviour of the boys and develop their social skills, with each other and with staff.

Pupils' arts education

In terms of arts development, the school was keen to get the boys involved in shared arts experiences and to develop new skills in music and dance. By the end of the project, it wanted the boys to have:

Music

• composed using music technology equipment and software;
• gained an understanding of melody, rhythm, tempo, dynamics and timbre;
• edited and re-edited compositions;
• used binary form structure in music;
• linked musical sequences;
• drawn on their own cultural experiences;

Dance

• created dance phrases;
• edited and re-edited dance sequences to create a dance composition;
• gained an understanding of shape, weight, space and rhythm in dance;
• gained an understanding of dance structure and free dance;
• used dance dynamics and tempo;
• gained an understanding of dance motifs.