Yes! After nine years of absence, MUS-E is back to Leiria, a city located in the center of Portugal. With the support of the local Municipality, MUS-E is back in two schools: E.B.1 Marinheiros and E.B.1 Quinta do Alçada, both in the School Group of Marrazes, from January 2020 onwards.

With two weekly sessions and five artists doing Music, Dance, and Theatre, they are working with 14 classes. They are multicultural classes, due to ethnic diversity and immigration. The teaching community is focused and enthusiastic about MUS-E, we wish MUS-E Leira all the success!

MUS-E Portugal is coordinated by the Associação Yehudi Menuhin Portugal and has the objectives of developing the artistic areas in primary public schools, sensitising children for the enjoyment of art and promoting their access to diversified forms of expression and communication. Privileging pedagogy based on cooperation, on individual responsibility, on respect of differences and on valorisation of the artistic contributions of every culture, MUS-E Portugal aims to contribute to the prevention of violence, racism and educational and social exclusion.

In Portugal, the regular sessions of MUS-E are integrated in the curriculum activities of the schools, and tend to occupy, during the whole school year, 10% of the total amount of curriculum time (three 45 minutes sessions, per week, in each class). These sessions consider the cultural diversity of each school population and are distributed by three main areas: Musical Expression; Movement and Dance and Dramatic Expression.

MUS-E Portugal also promotes very diversified initiatives in the schools and areas where the MUS-E is implanted as the organisation and participation in several events in schools and communities, the realisation of activities involving interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work, the realisation of sessions involving parents and children all together, the realisation of artistic and pedagogic workshops for teachers and other members of the school staff. In order to allow the share of experiences and the training of artistic animators, MUS-E Portugal organises, each year, the National Encounter of Artists and Animators of MUS-E.

In 2019/2020, MUS-E Portugal operate, in six schools, allocated in four different regions, Évora, Leiria, Lisboa and Oeiras.