Francisco Ferreira Drummond Basic Education School on Terceira wins "Dare, Intervene, Improve" prize
The "Dare, Intervene, Improve 2019" prize was awarded to the "Musicality in Language" project presented by Francisco Ferreira Drummond Basic Education School in the village of São Sebastião, municipality of Angra do Heroísmo. It was considered an innovative and multidisciplinary project aimed at promoting formal and non-formal learning as well as the inclusion of community knowledge.
The jury has decided not to award the second prize and Honourable Mention, considering that the second project in competition did not comply with the required innovation criteria.
The "Musicality in Language" project involves all elementary school students, covering a total of 207 students. It is intended to improve the literacy of students enrolled at this school establishment.
The Francisco Ferreira Drummond Basic Education serves the population residing in the villages of S. Sebastião, Porto Judeu and Feteira, where most people dedicate themselves to performing arts, namely theatre and music. From an early age, children are exposed to different forms of performing arts, such as vaudeville, summer festivities and "bailinhos" (traditional carnival dances from Terceira).
Bearing this situation in mind, the school implemented the project by putting arts at the service of the study of language, through an approach based on the use of music and theatre for the learning of Portuguese Language.
The children's natural appetite for music was also optimised for the development of activities that allowed them to acquire Portuguese language skills in a more attractive way instead of traditional approaches.
With this project, always developed in partnership between elementary school teachers and a music teacher, students showed an increased interest in learning Portuguese and, consequently, school results were quite satisfactory.
The "Dare, Intervene, Improve" annual prize was implemented in order to acknowledge and value school establishments promoting projects, created or adapted by them, to respond to the learning issues they face.
The creation of this prize recognises the efforts carried out by schools in fighting school underachievement and early dropout, improving teaching and learning conditions, and disseminating the work towards the promotion of educational success to the school community as well as to the society in general.
The 2019 prize concerns projects developed in the 2017/2018 school year.