"Yeah. I'm good at dancing," he says. When school literacy and numeracy scores fall, a collective cry goes up to bring back chalkboard slates, lines, and rote-learning times tables. Drama and painting are given a pat on the head and told to wait. But the arts, perhaps paradoxically, are emerging as the true key to raising academic performance. According to international and local research, arts programs improve neurological capacity, student wellbeing, even improving engagement with the school itself. For over 30 years, the Victorian government's Artists in Schools grants program has connected schools with professional artists in projects that go beyond the art room. For schools such as Mahogany Rise, the grant is about improving more than just marks. Principal John Culley says a successful arts program can engage a community with the school and provide students with a sense of possibility, and that is a big help in a low socio-economic area such as Frankston North. "It's a very tough area. The kids are fantastic and the parents do the very best they can," Mr Culley says. "But there's always an edge about life in this community, whether it be violence, drugs, all of those issues," he says. "[For students] to have an outlet where they can actually be expressive in an artistic way, whatever shape or form that takes, is really important for them, [and] we have a lot of our students that stick around for it," he says. In 2011, Mr Culley was granted an Extended School Residencies (ESR) program, an extension of Artists in Schools, through Arts Victoria, to partner with children's arts and drama group Polyglot Theatre, in a program held at the local high school, partly aimed at easing the transition between schools.

"Because we're in a highly disadvantaged area, we don't have the same fundraising capacities as other schools," Mr Culley says. Mahogany Rise was granted $35,000 through ESR, and extension of the Artists in Schools program. Artists in Schools, now in its 33rd year, funds partnerships between primary and secondary schools and professional artists, allowing students to engage with the curriculum through the arts, especially in art forms to which they would normally not have access. In 2014, 24 schools received a total of $394,000 between the two programs. Polyglot, itself 36 years old, is passionate about putting "kids in control", and providing them with the "scaffolding" to create their own projects. This year, students performed In My Skin, a student-devised show with a mix of dance, film and visual art at Frankston Arts Centre. The ESR program runs over a minimum of two terms, but the relationship between Mahogany and Polyglot has outlasted the grant, continuing for four years. Culley cannot speak highly enough of what it has achieved. "Polyglot is able to work much more one-on-one with the students," Mr Culley says. "It gives them some space to exist, and as soon as they have that, there's an impact on their learning opportunities, because they feel far more connected to the school," he says. "It helps centre the students, gives them a focus, and gives them an ability to be adaptable, but also to realise more of the potential they have." . Polyglot project director Kate Kantor believes in the power of art to unlock potential in kids. "There's a lot of research that shows that when you do interact with art, and create art from a young age, your development socially, and academically, is improved," Ms Kantor says. And the research backs her up.

Professor Brian Caldwell and Dr Tanya Vaughan of research and support organisation Educational Transformations, both previously of the Melbourne University Graduate School of Education, were commissioned by music and arts organisation The Song Room (TSR) to study the effects of arts programs on schools. They wrote a book Transforming Education through the Arts as a result. "What we confirmed … is that those [students] who participate in programs in the arts seem to do better in other areas of learning including literacy and numeracy, compared with students in schools that do not," Professor Caldwell says. The research showed that students at schools that had a TSR program scored a higher percentage of As and Bs in English, and a higher percentage of TSR students above the minimum standards for literacy than of non-TSR students. TSR students scored significantly higher in NAPLAN testing than non-participating students. Improvements in Science and Technology marks were equivalent to a lift in achievement of about half a year of school attendance. In TSR schools, 91 per cent of students scored above the national minimum for reading, compared with 68 per cent of those in non-participating schools. In fact, TSR students outperformed non-TSR students in most indicators tested. Professor Caldwell says the higher academic achievement is partly explained by the fact that students participation in the arts also improved their sense of wellbeing. "That in turn meant that their attendance at school improved. We found attendance levels on the days in which programs in the arts were offered, were significantly higher," he says. "But neurological research that suggested that patterns between left and right brain are seem to change with participation in music programs. That's pretty consistent research." The research studied more than academic performance, however. Dr Vaughan and Professor Caldwell studied schools in lower socio-economic areas of western Sydney, and were able to look at the effect of arts programs on predictors of potential participation in juvenile crime, which include low school attendance, low academic achievement, and impulsivity. Dr Vaughan was particularly excited by the predictability of the results that showed a steady rate of between 65 and 67 per cent reduction in absenteeism.

"That kind of reproducibility, most other scientists are actually quite stunned," she says. The TSR schools also showed increased school attendance, more students in high categories of social and emotional wellbeing, a rise in resilience of over 16 per cent, more positive social skills and work management, and engagement skills. Teacher-student relationships also improved. "In policy terms, we ignore that sort of research at our peril," Professor Caldwell says. Jesse Rasmussen, 30, co-founder of successful theatre group Four Larks, has a full scholarship to study drama at Yale University. But first, she went back to high school. In a project funded by the Artists in School program, Ms Rasmussen collaborated with former drama teacher George Franklin and students to create How Came That Blood, a reimagining of the Red Riding Hood story using visual art, drama, dance and music, written and created for and by students. Ms Rasmussen remembers Eltham High as giving her a strong foundation for her career.

"Eltham High was such an amazing experience for me - the drama program particularly," she says. "Classes were always wonderfully open and just a place for anyone ... It was definitely formative." Mr Franklin, who runs a traditionally strong arts and music program, was excited about what Ms Rasmussen could bring to the table. "We were looking to bring in the Four Larks aesthetic, which relies heavily on costume, found-object art, music and visual art, for the breadth of opportunities it would provide for students," Mr Franklin says. "We wanted to challenge ourselves," he says. In collaboration with Ms Rasmussen and music teacher Gabriel Piras, the school wrote and performed a libretto, and the music students provided a live score for the show. "When [students] are actually drawing, when they're actually playing their instrument, when they're actually performing the play, some of the academic challenges that some kids have can disappear," he says. And the investment pays off, he adds. In the Department of Education's Attitudes to School Survey, compared to like schools, Eltham students show a higher degree of connectedness both between students, and feelings of safety while at school. Eltham students are overrepresented in jobs in the arts for a school of its size, but other students have also benefited, he says. "Universally, students in the high-ATAR courses like medicine, law and commerce have had extensive engagement in the music and drama programs," he says.

Eltham takes its arts program one step further, with the team touring shows to the Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe Festivals. Dr Vaughan and Professor Caldwell identify the "high-risk, high-reward" element of rehearsal and performance as a key benefit of arts programs in increasing student self-confidence and resilience. Ms Rasmussen agrees. "The audacity of a high school production, taking it out and performing it somewhere… the fact that we could make that happen instilled in us confidence, and determination," she says. "In young people, it's dreadfully important to cultivate that sort of a mindset. To me, that's kind of all it is."