Sound Foundations EYs Music Project - Music Mark

PAGE 19 Sound Foundations Early Years Music Project Sound Foundations Early Years Music Project CAROLINE MORRIS Youth Music funding allowed Redbridge Music Service to deliver an Early Years music project across a variety of settings. Caroline Morris, Early Years music specialist, describes how she devised and implemented this successful project. unding from Youth Music’s Open Programme, which distributes £2million annually to fund music making activity for children and young people across England, enabled Redbridge Music Service to deliver an Early Years project in schools, nurseries and Children’s Centres for seven months. 640 children and families benefitted from the project, with 70% of those taking part classed as being in ‘challenging circumstances’, mostly due to the high proportion of children in the area with English as an additional language. F Purpose The aim of the project was to provide opportunities for children and families to take part in regular, quality music making activities in a range of Early Years settings, whilst training nonmusic specialist staff to deliver musical activities and identifying effective future provision in the borough. It is often the case that teachers and Early Years practitioners feel illequipped to deliver music activities in their settings. I hoped to address this in both schools and Children’s Centres by enabling staff to deliver specially designed curricula independently. I also wanted to raise the standard of Early Years music provision, the profile of Early Years music making and increased awareness of the many benefits associated with musical experiences in the first five years of life. Sound Foundations Early Years Music Project had two distinct elements: work in schools with Reception and Nursery classes; and work in Children’s Centres with parents and children. Both elements of the project yielded positive outcomes, but in this article I will focus on the work we did in schools. Experience the Music Whilst studying for a Masters Degree in Music Education at the University of Miami, I worked as a research assistant on the University of Miami Infant and Toddler Curriculum Project, which used a specially developed music curriculum for preschool settings called Experience the Music. This curriculum was devised by Dr. Joyce Jordan and Dr. Joy Galliford and incorporates singing, focused listening, movement and the playing of simple percussion instruments. It has a strong focus on literacy, uses traditional songs and rhymes as well as some composed pieces, and is designed to fit easily into the daily routines of Early Years settings. The research conducted by Dr. Joyce Jordan and Dr. Joy Galliford illustrated that, with training, non-music specialists were able to deliver quality music activities which had a positive impact on children’s development. Pre- and post-tests demonstrated that children in the treatment group showed significant growth in large muscle, small muscle, expressive language, cognitive, socio-emotional and self-help skills compared with the control group. Having worked closely with the authors on the development and implementation of the curriculum PAGE 20 Sound Foundations Early Years Music Project in the US, experiencing first-hand its positive contribution to children’s development, I created a UK version of the curriculum, which we used for this project. Sound Foundations in Schools Two large primary schools took part in the project with a total of 210 Reception children and 180 children from the nurseries benefitting from the music. The project was designed with Continuous Professional Development at its core, with all teachers, teaching assistants and support staff attending training sessions at the start, middle and end of the project and each class receiving a weekly 30 minute visit from the music specialist who demonstrated the activities. The staff in each class repeated the activities throughout the week in order that the children had the opportunity to practise them and increase their participation. Each class also received a weekly monitoring visit from me, where I observed staff carrying out two activities from that week’s lesson with their class. The staff received immediate written and verbal feedback and had the opportunity to discuss any difficulties they were having. Post-project feedback from staff found that the combination of weekly visits from the music specialist and the observation sessions in their own classroom gave them the skills, understanding and confidence they needed to deliver successful music activities. These procedures enabled them to observe how the music specialist reacted to the children for increased enjoyment, participation and understanding. The weekly observations allowed for specific individualized feedback that related to the environment, the children and the teacher’s delivery. As a result of this rigorous approach all teachers involved stated that they will continue to use Experience the Music with their classes next year without the need for further support, and strongly believed it should become part of their general curriculum. Imaginative Play Although the curriculum itself is delivered in a whole class format and is quite structured, teachers observed activities from the whole class music sessions being transferred to free play very early on in the project. Children were often heard singing the songs on their own, or in small groups, and adapting them to their environment. Having instruments readily available to the children facilitated their music making in imaginative play. For example, in the fifth week of the project a teacher observed two Reception children in outside play who were usually very quiet and hesitant to interact with others. They were playing the rhythm of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on different instruments together, without singing. Other children came and joined them, bringing more sound makers to the ensemble. Another child who had been putting pasta in a plastic bottle in another area came and showed the group what she had made, explaining it was like the egg shakers they had been using and joined in the music making. Parent Involvement In addition to the music in class, all children were given a CD and a weekly homework activity to do with their parents. A parent questionnaire found that 95% of parents felt more involved in their child’s education as a result of sharing the music homework activities with their child. They indicated that they found these activities enjoyable. At the end of the project all children involved participated in sharing events at their school. Parents were invited to watch the children perform songs and dances from the Experience the Music curriculum and also had the opportunity to join in some activities with their children. The sharing sessions were extremely successful and well attended. Parents enjoyed learning about the purposes of the activities as well as participating with their children. The schools appreciated the opportunity to invite parents to an interactive session as they are always looking for new ways to involve parents in school activities. Teacher Implementation Rates In order for us to assess how realistic it was for teachers to fit these activities into an already full curriculum, teachers kept a record of how often they did the activities each week. With about ten music activities each week, the average implementation rate was 60% (where 100% is doing all ten activities daily). This was an extremely positive finding, indicating that teachers were able to weave the music activities into their daily routines; that they recognized the value of repeating the activities; and that both teachers and children enjoyed them. Teacher Feedback After some initial scepticism from staff, the teacher feedback at the end PAGE 21 Sound Foundations Early Years Music Project of the project was overwhelmingly positive, both when considering their own professional development and the impact the project had on the children. I had asked the staff in each class to provide a case study of a child they thought had particularly benefitted from the music activities. When I went to collect them, I found that many staff had multiple case studies to give me as they had observed positive changes in so many children in their class. A content analysis of teacher feedback and case studies revealed the following trends: ‡ The inclusiveness of the activities ensured that all children could participate regardless of ability ‡ There was a positive impact on the language development of children with EAL and those with communication difficulties ‡ Quiet, shy children gained confidence and became more active ‡ There was increased confidence in speaking, listening and singing among all children ‡ Improved levels of concentration were observed ‡ There were improvements in relationships, teamwork, turn taking/sharing and listening to each other ‡ Children showed increased ability to move in time to a beat ‡ Children showed increased enjoyment of music and group activities as a whole ‡ There was an increase in the standard of whole class and year group singing At the end of the project 96% of staff involved reported an increase in their confidence to lead music activities. The percentage of staff reporting increases in proficiency in different activity areas (e.g. movement, playing instruments, teaching a song) was between 72% and 92%. All staff involved stated that being involved in the project had increased their understanding of the role of music in Early Years education; developed their skills in leading music activities; and helped them to use music to enhance other aspects of the curriculum. Staff also reported positive effects on their teaching skills in general and on their classroom management procedures in particular. Transitional activities in the curriculum such as the circle song, space-finding poems, rhymes to facilitate the distribution of materials and focusing activities became part of daily routines. Equipment Experience the Music uses simple, affordable rhythm instruments: rhythm sticks (claves) and egg shakers. This enables all children to participate in playing instruments together and for each class to have their own set. Chime bars are also used (D+A) to accompany singing and scarves and hoops are used for movement activities. It was observed that children thoroughly enjoyed using the equipment and that it increased their active participation. In the case of the movement activities, the equipment motivated children who had previously shown reluctance to participate in dance to join in with enthusiasm and with an increased range of movement. Listening Focused listening activities are central to Experience the Music. Each time the children listen to a sound (whether it be an environmental sound, a musical instrument or a musical phrase for them to repeat), they touch their ears. Teachers were hesitant at first, and found it difficult to see the purpose of implementing such a simple and seemingly arbitrary routine. After a few weeks of encouraging all of the children to touch their ears every time they had to listen to something, they found the children listened with better attention. Teachers then began to use this technique in their daily activities to aid with classroom management and phonics work. It also helped children to understand the concept of ‘my turn, your turn’, facilitating speaking and listening, conversation and the learning of songs and rhymes accurately. The Power of Music Conference July 2012 Quite early on in the project, we realized how successful Sound Foundations was in both schools and Children’s Centres. Staff and parent feedback was extremely positive and it seemed that wherever I went, staff had stories to tell me about the positive effects the music sessions were having on children, parents and members of staff. At Children’s Centres parents would tell me excitedly about changes in their child’s behaviour, ability to share and communicate and of the music making they were doing at home. We decided to share our findings with a larger audience by holding a conference and inviting Dr. Joy Galliford and Nancy Stewart from Early Learning Consultancy to be our keynote speakers. The overwhelming response to attend the conference demonstrated a desire for knowledge and resources related to music in the Early Years among both practitioners and policy makers. We had 70 delegates in total, including advisors, music specialists, teachers and nursery nurses. The day included sharing findings from our project, practical workshops in movement, beat activities, using chime bars with singing and music sessions with babies and toddlers. Nancy Stewart and Dr. Joy Galliford were inspirational speakers, sharing their knowledge, experience and enthusiasm. As a result of Sound Foundations there are now at least 12 schools in our area implementing Experience the Music in their Reception classes and nurseries and many more interested. Further reading Burton, S.L. & Taggart, C.C. (Eds.) (2011) Learning from young children: Research in early childhood music. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Education. Photographs included here by kind permission of Redbridge Music Service and the schools involved. Caroline Morris is a music teacher and music education consultant with a wide range of teaching experience in the UK and US. She has worked in primary, secondary and early years settings as well as with adults and training teachers and currently works for Redbridge Music Service as a teacher of Early Years music. Please email her if you would like more information about Experience the Music. caroline.morris@redbridge.gov.uk