Key Stage One music from a trainee animateur

Our summer term trainee animateur from the Royal Academy of Music, Hannah Bishop, outlines her experience below:

I was lucky enough to spend four successive Fridays with City of London Sinfonia animateur, Claire Bloor, observing and supporting her work with Year One and Reception children in both Lansbury Lawrence Primary School and John Scurr Primary School in Tower Hamlets. The project, entitled ‘The Fantastic Feast’, was designed around the theme of ‘food’, culminating in a concert with the City of London Sinfonia Brass Quintet.

During the workshops, each class designed a recipe to present to the chefs (musicians!) at the concert. Claire encouraged the children to be adventurous with their choices resulting in recipes such as ‘snake and crocodile soup’ and ‘insects and mashed potato’! Each class learned the chorus to The Chef Song, which Claire wrote, plus a verse incorporating their recipe ideas.

The concert involved the CLS brass quintet, dressed as chefs, playing different examples of music from all over the world. Claire was able to use this to link different food-types to different countries. These pieces were interspersed with each class making their musical recipe (with a lot of help from some amazing props!), singing their verse to the chefs and all the children singing the chorus. Multiple performances of the chorus, plus breaking up the music from the quintet, was a great way to ensure that the children were completely engaged throughout the hour-long concert.

Throughout the project, Claire had been using major and minor triads to teach the children to recognise the difference between the two. A major triad from one of the chefs meant that the food the children had cooked was good, and a minor triad meant that it was disgusting. In the workshops, Claire and I took turns to play a broken triad and the children sung it back, to either ‘yum, yum, yum!’ (major) or ‘bleugh, bleugh, bleugh!’ (minor). This was used in the concerts and each time the children were correct. It was great to see how simple and fun it can be to teach something like this to young children, without having to explain it using words.

I learned a huge amount working with Claire and she was very encouraging for me to lead warm-ups and song singing in the sessions, allowing me to experience leading younger children with her support and guidance throughout. She had some great games and short-activities up her sleeve and it was invaluable to observe how she kept a group of thirty 4-6 year olds engaged for an hour each week. Many thanks to everyone at City of London Sinfonia for this brilliant opportunity.

-Hannah Bishop, project trainee