Standing beside their chairs waiting for the teacher to start the music, the Primary 2 girls offer shy smiles while the boys fidget and look curious. The piano chord that introduces the song brings the whole class to attention.

“Sitting on top of the mountain Here’s what I could see Seven dwarfs were dancing, As happy as could be.”

All the children dance for a few seconds. Then it’s into the next verse.

“Seven dwarfs were sleeping, As tired as could be.” A classful of little heads go to one side and rest on hands.

In turn the seven dwarfs accompanied by a class of pupils tremble, look shy, creep, stomp and crawl.

The whole performance takes just under three minutes, including time for those who have crawled farthest to find their way to their seats. At the end the children are standing with big grins on their faces, waiting for their teacher’s next instructions.

The children in Elaine Stewart’s class at North Muirton Primary in Perth have just been “expressing emotions” as suggested by The Class Moves!, a new resource produced by the Health Education Board for Scotland (HEBS). When you are only six this is a job for your whole body, not just your face. This activity was a song accompanied by “BIG movement”.

Like all the activities in The Class Moves!, which has been distributed free to every primary school in the country, expressing emotions is designed for children to do in their classrooms.

“Its role is to encourage children to be active and aware of their body movements,” says Monica Merson, education and training manager at the HEBS. “It’s to encourage them to stretch themselves, metaphorically and literally.”

The Class Moves! has its origins in the Netherlands, where a group of teachers and physical and speech therapists came together to produce a progressive programme of playful activities for schoolchildren. It was piloted in Scotland, Wales, Belgium and Germany last session.

Using the latest research on supporting a child’s physical, mental and emotional development, the activities draw on elements of music, dance and drama to grab the imagination while being straightforward for teachers to use in the classroom.

“We commissioned the Scottish Council for Research in Education (SCRE) to evaluate the pilot studies in primary schools in Scotland and Wales,” explains Ms Merson. “Their conclusions were that pupils and teachers find the programme innovative, interesting and enjoyable, that it helps concentration and behaviour in class and relaxes and refocuses the children, and that training teachers is useful in raising awareness of the resource but isn’t at all necessary to enable them to use it.”

North Muirton Primary headteacher Kim MacGillivray, who took part in a training session with her staff, agrees with these findings. “The calendars (giving descriptions of activities) are very user-friendly and simple to follow, while the teacher’s manual goes into a lot more detail about how you can develop the ideas.”

However, teacher training sessions for The Class Moves! are being delivered around Scotland by more than 60 professionals in physical activity and health fields. These include primary PE specialists and active primary school co-ordinators.

One question raised by the SCRE as part of its evaluation, which was very positive, was how sustainable the resource would be for classes facing considerable demands from the curriculum.

“The activities are very flexible and take such a short time to do in a class,” says Ms MacGillivray. “You could easily spend the same length of time settling them in the morning or afternoon and it might not be as effective.

“I’ve asked all my teachers to carry out the activities first thing in the morning, or after break or lunchtime. But they can say ‘Right, put down what you’re doing and we’ll have five minutes’ exercise’ any time they like.

“It’s a great way to draw the class together and settle them down.”

Her staff are equally enthusiastic. “The activities for the wee ones include a lot of singing and dancing,” says Ms Stewart, “The kids already know all the words and actions. They’re loving it.

“We do it after break time to bring the class together. If they’re a little bit high it calms them down wonderfully well.”

Marcia MacKenzie, who teaches a special educational needs class at the school says: “We have a range of ages and difficulties, such as Down’s syndrome and autism, so it’s not quite as simple for us to use as the mainstream teachers. Some activities aren’t appropriate for our kids, so I’ll be going through and selecting the ones I want.

“The fact that all age groups have activities grouped according to the same themes - balance, emotions, your body, breathing, listening - will make that easier.”

Perth and Kinross has taken a slightly unusual approach to delivering the resource to the authority’s primary schools. “We decided to take delivery of The Class Moves! for all our schools, and then distribute it during the training sessions,” says active primary school co-ordinator Dawn Middleton, who ran the session for the North Muirton teachers. “It’s working very well and we’re getting a lot of positive feedback.

“Another thing we had to think about was how older pupils would perceive the programme and respond to it. Maybe it wouldn’t seem cool to them.

“We did consider implementing it through the early years initially and letting it roll through the school, but it has been very well received by the older children as well as the youngsters. I think that’s because it is progressive, with all the activities aimed at the appropriate age group.

“In P7, for example, there is less singing and dancing and more role-play, like practising what it’s like to go from being the oldest to the youngest in a school.”

“No matter what the age of the children in a class, the idea is for them to perform an activity for five minutes or so once a day. But a teacher might want to do it more often on some days.”

She concludes: “I was the first active primary school co-ordinator in Scotland, so I’ve a bit of experience encouraging kids to be more active and less focused on sport as the only form of physical activity. And as a former teacher I can also look at The Class Moves! from the teacher’s viewpoint. I think it’s the business.”

For information or to purchase extra sets of The Class Moves! at pound;50 each, contact Monica Merson at the HEBS, tel 0131 536 5540