Schools using dance and fashion to get bored pupils interested in maths

Schools are resorting to drama, role-play, music and dance to get children interested in subjects such as maths and science, according to Ofsted.

Teachers are increasingly abandoning traditional “chalk and talk” methods in favour of extravagant lessons designed to appeal to bored pupils, the watchdog suggested.

In one case, a school staged a London Fashion Week-style event in which pupils learned about the technology and science behind the clothing industry.

Ofsted said a secondary school used drums to highlight the relationship between numbers in a maths lesson. Pupils were encouraged to work on a drumming routine to accompany the multiplication table – boosting their recall of numeric patterns.

In a report, the watchdog revealed how another teacher told children to come up with a dance routine to develop their understanding of chemical bonding in a science lesson. The same inner-city comprehensive also staged a mock crime scene in the school gym to get children interested in forensic enquiry.

But the disclosure sparked fears that the academic content of lessons was being dumbed down to appeal to uninterested pupils.

Anastasia de Waal, head of education at the think-tank Civitas, said: “I’m worried about this idea that in order to make teaching interesting and to engage pupils you have to get down to their level. The point of school is to introduce children to new things and to challenge them.”

But Patrick Leeson, Ofsted’s director of education, said “creative approaches” to subjects made lessons more “relevant and engaging” for pupils.

The report – Learning: Creative Approaches that Raise Standards, which was based on inspections of 44 state schools in England – claimed that trendy methods boosted results. One school saw GCSE results double in three years after introducing an overhaul of teaching methods.

At one secondary, the head teacher came to school dressed in a kilt and took the role of the laird of a Scottish island as part of a citizenship class on politics and the development of democracy.

However, the report warned that some teachers failed to promote more “creative” teaching because they doubted it would help pupils hit exam targets.

“Lack of confidence, most often linked to concerns about examination results but sometimes growing from insecure subject knowledge, led to a more didactic approach from a few teachers,” Ofsted said.