Hope Creative reflections and evaluations from a trainee so far...

These are some notes on my experiences and reflections on being a trainee on the Hope Creative project so far, having attended 6 sessions since November 2015. I have been recording what we have done and where we have done it and how it was from my point of view.

Before the sessions started I had some training around vulnerable children and what happens when a child is taken into care. Although I had previous experience of some of this information through work, it was great to have my questions answered and get more information and knowledge about the parts that I'd not had the opportunity to come across or that I hadn't thought about before. I also had training around artist pedagogy and social pedagogy principals which was fantastic, especially as I feel that I naturally work according to these principals without thinking about it and it was great to gain further insight into the principles and concepts. Lastly, I got to attend a few of the final set-up meetings where I got to be involved in seeing how the risk assessments and other documents were drawn up. All of this is of interest to me as someone who is relatively new to running large scale projects involving multiple participants and practitioners. 

1st Session, November 14th 2015.

I really wasn't sure what to expect for the first session, I'd heard a lot of positive things about the project when it had run previously so was just looking forward to seeing how it would pan out. We arrived at the venue, a large hall with a stage at one end and a small kitchen just off it, and set up a keyboard in a corner by the stage and snacks and drinks on a table at the far end. This meant that if anyone was sat at the table, they were far enough away from the keyboard and small section we had set up to use that they wouldn't be distracting to the participants.

On this occasion there was 1 participant who had been on the project the last time around. She had bought a guitar with her and was full of ideas for writing her own songs, which was fantastic. Although she was outnumbered by the staff (3 music leaders and myself as a trainee) she didn't seem phased and I felt as though the session was very much lead by her. It started very naturally with one of the leaders helping her to tune up her guitar and then slowly we all drifted over to the keyboard area where the participant showed us some ideas for a song. Between us, we built on the idea, working out the chords to the tune and building up the song structure. Eventually we had a great structure and all had our own parts to sing (as directed by the song writer). We rehearsed a few times and it was great to see this girl blossom in confidence with our attention and she remained very engaged with us and lead us very well all the way through.

I felt that this was a lovely first session as our participant was so engaged and excited about seeing something that she had written take shape with a bit of our guidance. She started the session by saying that she wasn't very good at singing but ended it by performing the song we'd worked on, plus 2/3 others that she said she had been thinking about recently. I felt we all worked well together as practitioners and the session was very much lead by the young person. I can see it being a lot more difficult if there were a wider age and ability range but then we would always have the option to split into smaller groups if there were more participants who were finding it difficult to work on something all together in a larger group.

2nd Session, November 15th 2015

This session was held in a much smaller venue then the previous days session, but the room was still big enough for the group with a kitchen with some tables in for break times. There were more participants for this session, one boy and girl of around a similar age who had been on the project previously and two much younger girls who were new to the project. This session started with a circle and introductions before a vocal warm up. The two littlest were very shy and wouldn’t let go of their guardian throughout the warm ups. We then started to learn a song together (Tongo) a call and response that some of the young people had learned before. It was then suggested that maybe we should make a boat out of chairs to sing the song in and at that point, the older of the two girls came forward with some ideas and started to talk which then seemed to give her sister some confidence and as we all listened, both girls started to be really dynamic and confident.

After Tongo, we started to look for some suggestions from the young people about what they would like to sing. The two little ones were full of ideas and so was the young boy. He mainly suggested chart pop songs such as Adele, Beyoncé and Jessie J . The two younger girls seemed to be keener on the idea of using the laptop to sing through songs once and then move on to the next one. They found a dance along song that they wanted to do which we said we could use as a warm up next time. After some negotiating it was settled that we would do an acapella version of “All about that bass” So we split into two groups, and lead by the young boy and with moves made up by all of us collectively, we sang a short arrangement of the song.

This session was great as once we got started, all of the participants were very engaged and full of ideas and suggestions. The difficulties came from the power struggle between the older of the two younger girls and our young man conductor, both of whom have strong personalities and want their ideas to be heard and the ones used. I could sense some frustration building between them but us as the leaders were able to diffuse this by gently stepping in and facilitating the space so that each young person got a chance to present their ideas to at least one of us and then we were able to bring them together in such a way that non of them felt their ideas were compromised. We also worked to make sure that the quitter members of the group were heard and contributed some ideas to the final pieces.   

3rd Session, December 12th 2015

For this session, we were back in the big hall with the stage with the same music leaders. This session we had two fairly young sisters as participants. They were very excitable about the space that we were using and we suggested that because it was getting close to Christmas, maybe we should learn some Christmas songs. The girls were both very interested in the keyboard and spent some time making up funky riffs but were not too keen on the idea of doing a vocal warm. We asked them if they had any Christmas songs that they wanted to learn but they weren’t very engaged so we suggested that we try a version of jingle bells. Both girls had a go at learning Jingle bells on the keyboard but were quickly onto the next thing.

The girls were very keen to explore the stage and it was quite difficult to engage them in this setting. They wanted to wonder behind the curtains on the stage, which was problematic for health and safety reasons and also because we as practitioners didn’t want to have to sound too much like school teachers as we wanted the session to be as child centred as possible without having to go into “Don’t do that”/”You can’t do that.” The girls did get interested in the percussion and choreographing themselves and us on the stage which was great and we did get them interested in doing a little bit of singing along with their dancing and gymnastics around the hall.

 I found this session quite tiring trying to keep up with the relatively short attention spans of these two, but it was great that they were having a good time even if it felt quite unproductive. I hope that they got something out of the session and would be very interested to see how the session would have been different if there had been other, more focussed participants present as well. The session was still lead by the girls but they were more interested in running up and down the hall rather then learning or teaching us songs.  

4th Session, December 13th 2015

This session was a similar group to the 2nd session with the same boy and two young girls and the same practitioners present but with the addition of another trainee and an older girl who had participated in the project previously. All participants were confident from the beginning now and everyone joined in with some vocal warm ups and learning a Christmas version of “Hey Mr Miller” (“Hey Father Christmas”) This song worked well as it allowed us to split into two groups and sing it in a round, creative a mash-up of the original and the Christmas version which the kids really got into.

After this, one of the younger girls wanted to teach us some beat boxing that she had learnt at school, which was wonderful as everyone had a go and she used the flipchart to write out phrases, and demonstrated how to turn the phrases into beat boxing. This was great as she had the chance to get up and show us all something new, which she was really proud of. After asking the whole group what they wanted to sing, we managed to settle on doing a version of “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele which we split up the group to learn as the older two were very focussed and already knew the song quite well while the younger two wanted to come up with some actions and learn the words. When we came together again we had a full acapella version of the song, with actions and backing vocals, which was great. The older two also chose to work on a song on their own over break that they showed the rest of us when we came back in.

The issues with this session came from the laptop being quite distracting, especially to the younger ones who just wanted to flick through YouTube, which wasn’t particularly productive and was visibly frustrating the older ones in the group. I feel that although the laptop is a great tool, it can also take over the session a bit if we let it. What worked really well was having enough practitioners to ensure that the participants didn’t get wound up with each other as a couple of us could take the younger two off and leave others to work on more challenging material with the more focussed participants. 

5th Session, January 30th 2016

There were to sessions a couple of weeks before this session but unfortunately, we had no participants for the Saturday session and I was unable to attend the Sunday session due to illness.

For this session, we were in a much smaller room in the same building as our usual hall. This was because the hall had been double booked so we ended up in a meetings room instead. There were three of us present as practitioners, myself, and two leaders, one male and one female and we had the same two young participants as in the 3rd session. This time, in the smaller space, the session seemed much more productive. The space wouldn’t work well if the group were bigger, but as there were only two (five of us altogether) the space worked well. There were much less things to play with and be distracted by in this room. As well as our usual set up of keyboard, percussion box and flip chart, I brought along two ukuleles for the participants to try if they wanted to. We did a short vocal warm up, mainly lead by the girls, involving shaking and jumping, breathing and animal imitations which was great, and good to get the girls interested in testing their voices.

We learnt a version of “Black Magic” together, with one of the girls singing and dancing and the other having a go on the ukulele and the drums. After practicing a few times, we set up a camera to film the performance and have a look at what we might like to change. The girls were both very excitable by the camera like they had been about the stage the last session they attended. They both enjoyed watching the video back and we asked them to think about what they would like to change and then filmed it again before both of them chose the one they thought was best. Both girls came up with the idea that they wanted to do “Men in Black” so we looked it up on a phone and got the general gist of the track. This time, the girl who originally had a go on the ukulele, learned the piano part and the one who had previously sung, had a go with the ukulele and drums. Both of them came up with an introduction to the song on their instruments and then learned the tune, which they played themselves.

The girls seemed a lot more focussed this session, and although they still flit from one thing to another, it was all creative and linked. They wanted to draw the aliens from Men in Black and were making up dances and stories. I feel that as practitioners, we went in with a better approach for this group. We were more organised and slightly more authoritative without being too firm and while remaining very flexible. Also, while the girls sometimes seemed like they had short attention spans they could remember the piano riffs that they wrote over a month ago and were retaining lots of little things that we learned together throughout the session, which they were very quick to pick up in the first place. The feedback from the guardian who came to pick them up was that they absolutely love the sessions and I felt like they had really gotten into this session and I think they definitely will take something away from it.      

6th Session, January 31st 2016

For this session, we had 3 young participants, the boy who has been from the beginning and the two young girls who have also been from the beginning, and 4 staff, myself, another trainee, and two leaders, one male one female. As I had missed the session before, my fellow practitioners had started work on a couple of songs and agreed what we would be working on with the kids. After a short vocal warm up and some tongue twisters, we learnt a version of The Can-Can as another little warm up and to get us focussed. This worked well for everyone, as we were able to split into three groups, to sing and dance it through. This group in particular do seem to work well when there is a physical element involved such as dancing or acting.

We then sang through ‘Rolling in The Deep.’ For this, we split into two groups and some of us worked on the choreography while the two younger girls went into different space to learn the backing vocals and make up some dance moves of their own. This was great as the young people were coming up with the moves themselves and directing the rest of us and they came up with some really creative ideas without getting in each other’s way. When we’d practiced apart, the two groups came together and everything fit nicely.

Lastly, we learnt a song that one of the girls was singing in a school play the following week. We sang it as a call and response with her leading us, singing the song one line at a time which we sang back to her. All three participants acted along with the song (which was about three pigs) and we copied some key actions and sang behind them. The group were all very respectful and understanding of each other this week and managed to work through any disagreements with very minimal input from us, which was great to see. All participants had a good time and we had three pieces to show at the end. We also got to talk about what they would like to do next time and have agreed to look at some pieces from musicals as they all enjoy being quite theatrical with their performances.