On mentoring a young EY music practitioner in music making and what I’ve learnt - Telford Soundpots

Telford Soundpots

Singing ‘Ready, steady off we go’ at the start of a song with young children is not often practised by Early Years practitioners. But this simple ‘rule’ is crucial: it allows the children to prepare, to hear the pitch, and ensures they come in on the first line.  Thus, it was one of the first skills we modelled to mentees in Soundpots in Telford.

Soundpots is a speech and language project for under fives funded by Youth Music and run by Telford & Wrekin Music Service and Make Some Noise. We worked across eight settings and in each one a mentee was assigned to me, the music leader. Each one also became my ‘go to’ person for reflection, discussion and planning. The aim was to build up their musical confidence, inspire them with new repertoire and demonstrate different ways of delivering music to their under-fives.

So often what is lacking in practitioners is confidence and inspiration. They may feel they have poor singing voices, or they are tired of over familiar Early Years repertoire. Often watching me deliver was excellent CPD in itself. Over the weeks they learnt the songs, found themselves singing them during the day, and introduced my approaches and repertoire to their own music making.  Learning how to interpret the children’s responses – disseminating them, valuing them – was key.

For myself, I realised how much potential my mentees had, and that so much was locked away inside them. This again was due to lack of confidence and not knowing what high quality music making looks like. And a lot of it was due to time – not having the time to learn new repertoire. In Soundpots, I was able, over the weeks, to teach them a set of new songs. They all lapped these up, learned to adapt them, and to run their own sessions. Some settings bought new instruments and props. Our simple tub of shaky eggs that we gave to each setting set them on their way.

One of our aims is to leave a legacy, to make our work sustainable. Each mentee was encouraged to skill share, and this was done in different ways. Staff meetings, hub meetings are examples. Then there was the skill-sharing with other members of the team – the children themselves. One of my mentees modelled good practice to great effect in a busy nursery where the children and staff would so easily become distracted by parents coming in and out. She stayed focused and thus the children did too.