Condensed Brief: To create a series of accessible multimedia music and theatre sessions for a group aged between 14 and 15, with the aim of broadening their short and long term horizons while boosting their academic attainment and welfare in school. This would be aimed at schools with already low arts funding, showing that creative careers are indeed possible to teenagers who wouldn’t have considered this otherwise.
Project Aims: There are several fundamental aims that I hope to achieve with this project; first and foremost being to introduce different ways of thinking about music, drama and storytelling to a group of teenagers who might otherwise not be exposed to much creative learning. Hopefully, over the course of a term long project we will have broadened what the group think is possible within these art-forms and, more importantly, have given them a chance to find some potential passions that might have gone undiscovered. Thinking practically, it might only be a small percentage of a class that retains an interest in what we teach them but, hopefully, if led well this project will introduce something new to everyone who attends.
Currently, in the UK creative subjects in schools are being increasingly side-lined and made inaccessible to students, with focuses on STEM and English being prioritised (Cultural Learning Alliance, 2025). An article posted by the Cultural Learning Alliance couldn’t highlight this more. Here we see Barakat Omomayowa talking to young people about how creative subjects have suffered in their schools. One of the points drawn is that with the loss of expressive arts in schools, we see a change in how young people view the arts themselves. Young people can no longer see a creative career as a dream they can achieve. An aim of my project therefore would be to bring creative subjects to students who would otherwise not be encouraged to pursue them.
To continue, as highlighted by a report carried out by the University of the Arts London (2024), taking part in arts and creative classes can be a huge help for boosting cohesion in local communities and bringing people together. Schools are an ideal place to start this process, and with creative subjects in decline, creative projects like this, I believe, are important in bringing the students together and building lasting connections and social skills.
Aiming to boost the social skills of the students involved, I also hope that they will have a noticeable boost in their personal wellbeing. Creativity is crucial for the wellbeing of children, an article by the National Centre for Creative Health (n.d.) talks about this in detail and suggests there are three main areas where creativity has an effect on the wellbeing of young people:
• biological e.g. influencing the physiological symptoms of depression and anxiety
• psychological e.g. self-expression, confidence and self-esteem
• social e.g. facilitating social connection and fostering a sense of belonging.
The aim of my project would be to help the students holistically with this. The workshops will provide a safe environment with no specific pressures and will give a chance for self expression. As mentioned above, also fostering a sense of community. Something that this article mentions repeatedly is the need for creativity to be accessible. Another intention with this project would be to make it accessible to anyone who would be in the class, on both the level of their musical/creative ability and also catering to any SEND needs that might be in the class. With an overarching aim of building communities, making sure that everyone can be involved will be a necessity. In conversation with Connie Chinn (core team and freelance facilitator at BLINK Dance Theatre), she highlighted how music is a great connector of people, however something that can be very inaccessible to those in the SEND community. Making my sessions accessible would mean that those people might be able to connect with their peers in a new way (see appendix 6). The project would take place in a secondary school and thus we would coordinate with the staff accordingly to work out what the specific SEND needs will be. This might mean we adapt the specifics of the course and/or work more closely with the staff to make this possible.
A final long term aim for this project is to boost the amount of young people going into the creative industries. The Cultural Learning Alliance report mentioned earlier points out that the number of students entering into creative GCSE subjects has fallen by 42% since 2010. Furthermore, an article from 2025 published by the Society of London Theatre & UK Theatre (6:3) points out that with the lack of creative education, the number of skilled young professionals in the creative industries (in this report specifically theatre) is declining. Thus my project will be a small part in helping a wider issue.
Project Details: This project will run in a secondary school, for ages 14-15, over the course of 1 full term of a school year. In the scheme of work attached I have set out 12 titled sessions, however this would be subject to change with the specifics of the school term in question. This project will be as flexible as possible to make sure it can run well with either limited time or limited resources (within reason). I would like the project to fit harmoniously with the students’ school life to try and maximise how much they will get from it, thus being able to adapt it to fit within their school term would be useful. The sessions themselves would be 2 hours long. With the attention span of 14-15 year olds being around 30-40 minutes (Brain Balance, 2026), this shouldn’t be too long to be unproductive. All the sessions would be planned accordingly, ensuring to have regular breaks and/or changes of activity to keep focus in the room.
14-15 year olds are at the point of developing who they are as a person. Still likely going through puberty they are both developing physically and mentally (Rady Children’s Health, 2021). As talked about in an article by Rady Children’s Health, they are at the point where their priorities are shifting, putting more importance on social relations and their own interests. Furthermore, they are starting to think in more abstract ways, becoming fascinated with philosophical and social issues. My project would hopefully harbour this, both helping them develop their social skills, and challenging them to think with more depth about music and wider arts. The individual session plans will have a mix of practical and discussion elements to reflect this, hopefully boosting their engagement with deep thought and building their confidence with group activities.
The sessions would be part of a timetabled school day rather than an optional session run before/after school. This would mean that we would get a mix of students of varying abilities rather than just those interested at the offset. The project is about finding passions in students who are yet to find them themselves, thus preaching to the choir would defeat the point.
The project will be structured by me and another facilitator who will lead the drama/theatre side of things. However, it will be taken in a direction mainly led by the students. The outcome and/or ‘product’ of the project will be a performance during the penultimate session. This will mostly be planned by the students in the weeks prior and hopefully be something they are proud of (see session plan week 8). The prompt we will give the students will be a street performance featuring the music, drama and storytelling learnt in the first half of the sessions. It is likely that this will take place within the grounds of the school site, but depending on the specific school in question and the input of the students, this could be a literal street performance wherever is appropriate. This may then bring up questions of safeguarding around taking the students off-site, however could be more meaningful to them, especially if we can find a location that they all resonate with. Furthermore, this would remove the idea that this project is a ‘school concert’ and will be something they can take more seriously. Again, with an age group that are putting more faith into their own interests it is important that this project doesn’t come across as condescending, we need to approach them as adults.
As mentioned, the first half of the project will be based around introducing musical and theatrical ideas to the students and broadening their horizons (see scheme of work). I will be leading the music component. I will introduce to them: different ways of making music simply; different ways music can serve a narrative function; and as many different musical styles as possible. The key message being that music is something accessible to ALL of the students. Week 2 of the project (see session plan week 2) will be the first of the music focussed weeks. This (as with all the sessions) will start with both a physical warmup and a small amount of group singing. The warm up will primarily relax the students and get them involved and comfortable in the space. The first activity will be primarily fun. Then the warm up will also serve as a medium to link together movement and music. Looking into the ideas of Dalcroze Eurythmics, it seems clear that movement can aid understanding of music, thus the warm up itself can take a role in preparing the students for the session to come, and get them listening (Dalcroze Society of America, 2026).
The group singinging after the warm up might be awkward in the first few sessions, but hopefully will see more engagement each week. The work of the Natural Voice Network highlights exactly what I would want to achieve with this – uniting the group of people and allowing everyone to feel involved (Natural Voice Network, 2026). The NVN run community choirs that take any one of any voice and ability. Learning by ear, everyone can be involved. There is no standard. They share that the members of their choirs feel connected to the people around them and often report improved mental health; this is exactly how I want to start each session I run and fundamentally links back to my set of aims.
The main bulk of this session will mostly be a discussion, this will put the students and us as leaders on a level playing field, allowing them to commit themselves to it. All the discussion will be followed up by some form of either listening or practical. This will be a mix of demonstration, and experimentation. With an aim of making music accessible, making sure everyone can involve themselves in every step is vital, thus we will ensure every student has an instrument to use to get involved (likely percussion). We will also implement body percussion and vocalisations to take this further. Finally, after the main bulk of the session, there will be a cool down, featuring a drum circle, some final games and a reflection. The drum circle will, like the singing, join everyone together again before they leave the space and will also be a part of most of the sessions depending on time.
The reflection is possibly one of the most crucial parts of the session, as it will allow everyone to properly absorb what has been learnt – this also will take place after every session. I am inspired by the ‘Art of Hosting’ method, which is designed to harbour meaningful conversations and productive interactions holistically (Art of Hosting, n.d.). A key part of this is reflection which they refer to as sharing the ‘Harvest’ of an interaction, allowing everyone to share both what they’ve learnt and how they’re feeling. This will make my sessions feel more meaningful to the students and help everything sink in. I have also taken this approach to the grand scheme of the project including a reflection week after the final performance (see session plan week 12). This will help the whole project sink in and provide a cathartic release. This will also be a fun session for the students to look forward to as a ‘reward’ whilst giving us a chance to evaluate the project (to aid in applying for future funding and improving the project) in a way that doesn’t seem like a box ticking exercise. As the main part of this session we will implement a ‘World Cafe’ – one of the AOH’s conversation methods (The World Cafe, 2026).
Business Plan: First and foremost I intend to apply for a National Lottery Project Grant to fund my project in its entirety. My main reasons being that my project:
- Will have a firm start and end date once agreed with the school
- Will be not for profit
- Aligns itself with the types of project they support
I have calculated the cost of my project in the budget attached below. The budget mainly covers pay for Myself and the Co-leader of the project, also factoring in some petrol money for travel. I have worked out the paid rate via taking the Musicians Union rates for leading music workshops (Musicians’ Union, 2026) and dividing that into an hourly rate. I have factored in some money to spend on the resources we will need for the project, most of this going towards finding percussion and musical instruments that we can divide out between the whole class of 30. In wanting to bring this project to schools with a present lack of creative education, I am taking the assumption we will have to supply everything ourselves funded by the grant we will apply for. We will supply some materials funded by ourselves but this will mainly include instruments and props we already own to add interest to the sessions for the students.
Word Count – 2315
Bibliography:
Art of Hosting (n.d.) Art of hosting and harvesting conversations that matter: Homepage. Available online: https://artofhosting.org/ [Accessed 09/05/26]
Arts Council England (2026) National lottery project grants: guidance library. Available online: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/ProjectGrants/national-lottery-project-grants-guidance-library [Accessed 09/05/26]
BLINK Dance Theatre (2026) Website home page. Available online: https://www.blinkdancetheatre.org/about-us [Accessed 12/05/26]
Brain Balance (2026) Normal attention span expectations by age. Available online: https://www.brainbalancecenters.com/blog/normal-attention-span-expectations-by-age [Accessed 09/05/26]
Cultural Learning Alliance (2025) Behind the numbers: real voices on the decline of arts in schools. Available online: https://www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/behind-the-numbers/ [Accessed 27/04/26]
Dalcroze Society of America (2026) What is Dalcroze? Available online: https://dalcrozeusa.org/about/what-is-dalcroze/ [Accessed 09/05/26]
Harry Hyman (2025) The state of opera: Harry Hyman, founder of the International Opera Awards, reviews the state of opera in the UK and outlines what needs to be done in the year ahead. Available online: https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/feature/the-state-of-opera [Accessed 13/04/26]
Musicians’ Union (2026) Music teaching rates of pay. Available online: https://musiciansunion.org.uk/education-and-teaching/teaching-pay-and-employment/music-teaching-rates-of-pay [Accessed 11/05/26]
National Center for Creative Health (n.d.) How creativity supports children’s mental health and wellbeing in schools. Available online: https://ncch.org.uk/uploads/Creativity-and-Mental-Health-in-Schools-Briefing.pdf [Accessed 02/05/26]
Natural Voice Network (2026) What is natural voice? Available online: https://www.naturalvoice.net/about/what-is-natural-voice/ [Accessed 09/05/26]
Rady Children’s Health (2021) Teenager growth and development: 13 to 18 years (adolescent). Available online: https://choc.org/ages-stages/13-to-18-years/ [Accessed 09/05/26]
Society of London Theatre & UK Theatre (2025) The state of British theatre in 2025: growth, risk and the urgent need for public investment. Available online: https://uktheatre.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/SOLTUKT-State-Of-British-Theatre.pdf [Accessed 30/03/26]
University of the Arts London (2024) Harnessing creativity to build cohesive communities. Available online: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/press-office/stories/harnessing-creativity-to-build-cohesive-communities-new-research [Accessed 02/05/26]
The World Cafe (2026) Design principles. Available online: https://theworldcafe.com/key-concepts-resources/design-principles/ [Accessed 09/05/26]
Appendices:
Appendix 1: Scheme of work
| Week | Session Title | Led by |
| 1 | Introduction week | ML/DL |
| 2 | Intro to music | ML |
| 3 | Intro to theatre | DL |
| 4 | Storytelling workshop | DL |
| 5 | Music 2 | ML |
| 6 | Theatre 2 | DL |
| 7 | Storytelling workshop 2 | DL |
| 8 | Performance prep 1 | ML/DL |
| 9 | Performance prep 2 | ML/DL |
| 10 | Final run through/class feedback | ML/DL |
| 11 | Performance Week | ML/DL |
| 12 | Reflection/Evaluation week | ML |
ML – Music Lead
DL – Drama Lead
Appendix 2: Session plan week 2
Week 2 – Intro to Music
Aim: introduce different ways of looking at music and assess the musical ability of the group.
- Physical warmup (practical) – 10 mins
- Group singing (practical) – 10 mins
- What Can music do/mean? (discussion) – 15 mins
- Musical examples following discussion (listening) – 15 mins
- (also serves as a bit of a break for the students)
- What roles can music have? (discussion/practical) – 30 mins
- Assess students musical ability
- Will need percussion for them to get involved
- What different forms can music take? (discussion/practical) – 20 mins
- acoustic/electric/different groups etc. experiment
- Drum circle – 10 mins
- Some Games to finish the session – 5 mins
- Brief reflection on session – 5 mins
Materials needed: will need to bring enough percussion to give to the whole class if needed. Presentation and musical examples to show to class. Other assortment of instruments to show class and/or demonstrate during the discussions. A3 paper and stationary write down what is discussed and for reflection at the end.
Appendix 2: Session plan week 8
Week 8 – Performance Preparation 1
Aim: Create a solid idea of what the performance will look like so it can come together in the weeks ahead.
- Physical warmup (practical) – 10 mins
- Group singing (practical) – 10 mins
- Talk about the idea of a street performance (discussion) – 15 mins
- What could it look like?
- What could it involve?
- Could it be interactive?
- Go over briefly what we’ve covered in previous sessions (discussion) – 10 mins
- Get them thinking about what practically they might want to do/enjoyed
- Decide on theme (discussion) – 5 mins
- Thinking time (individual work) – 5 mins
- Brief game to serve as break (practical) – 5 mins
- Group discussion on ideas (discussion) – 30 mins
- The students will share ideas
- We will workshop as many of them as possible in a whole class setting
- Get people into groups based on what they would like to work on – 5 mins
- This will be based of the group discussion
- Hopefully can get everyone working on something they are interested in
- Initial discussions in groups to get ideas together (group work) – 10 mins
- Facilitators will go round and help consolidate ideas
- Only need rough ideas at this point
- Idea Sharing with the whole class (discussion) – 5 mins
- Consolidate what has been thought about and serve as a reflection
- Either drum circle or game to end (practical) – 7 mins
- Dependant on energy left in the room
- Brief reflection (discussion) – 3 mins
Materials needed: Will need A3 paper and pens for whole class discussions and A4 paper and stationary for individual planning.
Appendix 3: Session plan week 8
Week 8 – Performance Preparation 1
Aim: Create a solid idea of what the performance will look like so it can come together in the weeks ahead.
- Physical warmup (practical) – 10 mins
- Group singing (practical) – 10 mins
- Talk about the idea of a street performance (discussion) – 15 mins
- What could it look like?
- What could it involve?
- Could it be interactive?
- Go over briefly what we’ve covered in previous sessions (discussion) – 10 mins
- Get them thinking about what practically they might want to do/enjoyed
- Decide on theme (discussion) – 5 mins
- Thinking time (individual work) – 5 mins
- Brief game to serve as break (practical) – 5 mins
- Group discussion on ideas as group (discussion) – 30 mins
- The students will share ideas
- We will workshop as many of them as possible in a whole class setting
- Get people into groups based on what they would like to work on – 5 mins
- This will be based of the group discussion
- Hopefully can get everyone working on something they are interested in
- Initial discussions as a group to get ideas together (group work) – 10 mins
- Facilitators will go round and help consolidate ideas
- Only need rough ideas at this point
- Idea Sharing with the whole class (discussion) – 5 mins
- Consolidate what has been thought about and serve as a reflection
- Either drum circle or game to end (practical) – 7 mins
- Dependant on energy left in the room
- Brief reflection (discussion) – 3 mins
Materials needed: Will need A3 paper and pens for whole class discussions and A4 paper and stationary for individual planning.
Appendix 4: Session plan week 12
Week 12 – Evaluation/Reflection Week
Aim: Sum up and reflect on the project. Get the students to think of what they will take forward. Evaluate project. Final bit of fun!
- Physical warmup (practical) – 10 mins
- Group singing (practical) – 10 mins
- Write out timeline of project/remember what was done (discussion) – 10 mins
- World cafe style reflection (practical/discussion) – 40 mins
- How can you take creativity further? (discussion) – 20 mins
- Tie in the link of creative industry work
- How does what we’ve covered tie into their wider lives?
- Final round of games (practical) – 20 mins
- Final singing and goodbye (practical) – 10 mins
Materials needed: Will need A3 paper and pens for the world cafe section of the session.
Appendix 5: Budget
| Project Component | Description | Cost |
| Materials | Percussion for class: 30x small djembes for the class and extra pieces of percussion. | £1000 |
| Stationary: A3 Paper, A4 paper, Pens | £100 | |
| Staff | (£59 per hour(including planning)) x (2 staff) x (24 hours of sessions) | £2832 |
| Travel | Petrol | £60 |
| Total | £3992 |
Appendix 6: Statement from Connie Chinn
“Music is a conceptual subject which is difficult to understand. With sounds evoking emotions and dots representing pitch – which in themselves all just represent different vibrations, music has become almost inaccessible.
Music is a great tool for connection, which there can be a lack of, especially peer to peer in SEN settings. It’s really important to support connection and joy and bring people together through music. You never know – there might be two drum and bass lovers in one class and you wouldn’t know until you listened to it!
Often in SEN settings, music consists of listening to children’s music, not being able to explore instruments for themselves in their own time. Because music is such a connector, I think it’s important that young people can experience music that their peers are choosing to listen to or take part in, age aware choices allow students to explore something new and what may feel more appropriate for the way they are feeling at that point in their lives.”
Transcribed statement from conversation with Connie Chinn on the 10th of May 2026
