Diary of a Trainee Music Leader

Level Up! is a Youth Music funded programme of delivery at Two Rivers High School in Tamworth, and delivered by Make Some Noise. Emma Brookes is shadowing musician Chris Watt to widen her skills in working with young people with SEND. She will be keeping a blog on her progres.

I’ve been working for Make Some Noise for nearly a year and a half now and was originally employed as an Early Years music leader. During that time I’ve worked in a SEND nursery and also in libraries delivering sessions to families. I also teach dance to a group of adults with SEND so the Level Up! project was really different for me in that I’d never worked with children of high school age with SEND.

I get to work with another great member of staff from Make Some Noise, Chris Watt. Chris is a real pro and has many years of experience. He is used to the school as he’s done several projects with them over the last 3 years and his repertoire and enthusiasm is a winner with the students.

During our time at Two Rivers Special School in Tamworth, we will be running music sessions with students using percussion, tuned instruments and technology. We will also be helping out with their school show.

There are 3 workshop groups each week with two classes.  Class 1 have quite complex needs and so we have started with really simple clapping exercises. This has now progressed onto a bit of singing and then use of percussion instruments. The progression within a week was brilliant! I was told that some students may struggle with new faces so I’m not sure whether the second week was better because they were just really engaged and understood the tasks or whether they had just accepted that I was going to be a regular feature and were more comfortable around me.

The second class are upper set year 9.  This is a much larger group and are playing ‘I got a feeling’ by the Black Eyed Peas all on piano, guitar, bass and keyboards. They all knew what they were doing before I had started the project with them but because of the Easter break had digressed a little bit. The plan with this group is to get them back up to speed over the next few weeks and record their final version before moving on to another task.

I wasn’t really sure of the type of SEND that these children had and any assumptions I had about it were completely wrong. Even after 2 weeks, I’ve noticed a real difference in the abilities of the students and so I’m really looking forward to the next couple of months. 

For more information about Make Some Noise and our work with children and young people in challenging circumstances, please visit our website http://www.make-some-noise.com/

Emma Brookes

Trainee Music Leader

Make Some Noise