by Author Lauren Syrett

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Early Years Staff Training

“Two years in, instead of a big team with two Music Leaders, we have a whole Music Team! Our EY staff have grown in confidence, and embedded their training, and their new confidence and enjoyment in music-making, in every WILD session.”

This year we have been investing a large chunk of our time in training and helping our early years educators become more confident music leaders. There have been training days for our creche workers across the county and also training days specifically for our link workers who create a vital link between WILD and the children's centres. There has also been an opportunity for the creche workers to take the lead in their own session following a simple plan of well-known nursery rhymes and songs. 

The training workshops took on a very simple objective, to improve the confidence of our early years educators using vocal techniques, warm ups, games and more. For some of the people, music and singing was something which would come naturally, whereas for some others it would be the most terrifying prospect, the thought of having to sing in front of others. So we tried to cater for all. For even our most confident workers the idea of leading a session with our participants was going to be a challenge. 

When 10 adults are asked to sing ‘Wind the Bobbin Up or Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes’ to each other, you can only imagine the general reaction you receive! We promised them that there was a very important reason why we asked such a bizarre thing however I don’t think we enlightened them to this information at the time. 

You won’t find many people who genuinely like the sound of their own voice when singing. I remember when I first started working for WILD, I would meet a new group of mums, their children and the creche workers for the first time and immediately burst into song. I was terrified, especially because singing or music had never been my specialty. I knew that the project wasn’t created to produce the next Adele, but Music Makes Me Happy was created for much more than that. So if you forget the words, get the tune wrong, sing out of tune or just don’t want to sing it’s ok. Participating in whatever way with music will have an impact on your overall wellbeing. 

So when we asked the workers to sing the songs in front of each other, we were simply asking them to practice in front of the people they would know the most in the room. Practicing in front of your peers, who may recognise if you sing the words or tune wrong is far more challenging than singing in front of a group of young children who don’t really care if you sing it out of tune. This type of peer led training will put our staff in the best position to deliver music. We are not stood on the O2 stage singing Dingle Dangle Scarecrow in front of 20,000 people. We are stood in front of a maximum of 10 people singing nursery rhymes and songs that the children will love regardless of if it’s in the right key. 

The link worker training was slightly different as we were able to pilot a small section of the upcoming ukulele training which we will be workshopping next year. By learning just 3 chords on the ukulele, you can play hundreds of songs. So we got all of our colourful uke’s out, taught the 3 chords and by the end of the session the workers were able to play both If You’re Happy & You Know It and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. 

It wasn’t just our creche and link workers getting stuck into music training this year, even the music workers ‘took to the books’ (as such). Each of the music workers at WILD have different specialties and we have both been learning from each other as well as attending some fantastic CPD workshops. Earlier this year we attended Teaching Songs Effectively, run by the Cornwall Music Education Hub and led by Ula Weber. We got stuck into singing right from the off, as Ula didn’t introduce the workshop until after starting with a song sung to the tune of a military cadence. 

 

'I don’t want to sing today                  1 2 3 4

But i will sing anyways                      Stand up straight, don’t look at the floor!

And if what I sing sounds good          5 6 7 8 9

Then I’m singing as I should!             Looking good and feeling fine!”

*(words by Sarah Budd)

 

This song led nicely into a task later on in the workshop exploring simple songwriting techniques which have been really helpful when working with the mums in our groups. 

'I am going to the beach                     1 2 3 4

I might see some dancing fish            We’re gonna play tug of war

Children swimming in the sea             5 6 7 8 9

While were eating ice cream!              Sun is setting now it’s home time.”

*(words by mums from St Austell group)

 

We can’t wait to get stuck into lots of exciting opportunities this year at WILD! 

Stay tuned!