Journey of an Emerging Music Leader - SEND school settings

Blog of an emerging music leader

Level Up Blog Post 3

There have been lots of great moments over the past two weeks.  Even though we’ve only been with the year 8 group for 3 weeks, most of them have taken turns playing on different instruments, before deciding which they like best. They have learned a few chords already and will easily have learned a whole chord sequence over the next couple of weeks.

Not only are they getting good at chords but their rhythm and listening skills are really improving. Chris did a counting game where they would only play on the first beat, then on the first two beats. It wasn’t perfect the first couple of times but they soon got it and it sounded great.

We don’t always have much time with this group but we are so productive and they are progressing so well.

These past few weeks have made me really notice that although there is a wide range of abilities, there is so much progression and at varying but amazing rates.

Year 8 have really taken to the sessions and the first year 9 group have really benefitted from the routine of the sessions. We normally start with clapping exercises, including ‘’don’t clap this one back’, then move on to creating arrangements using the djembes. We also sing through some songs and most of the children like to join in with ‘let it go’.

There is talk of the second year 9 class playing for the school show so hopefully they will start a new song next week in preparation for that.

We are working much better with the school now and the teacher and assistant are really only there to provide any support or to deal with problems if they occur.

I absolutely love seeing of the students from this class smiling when he’s joining in with the djembes or its his turn to copy a clapping rhythm.

Chris has been leaving me to lead more too. We will split groups into two and he will work with one and I will work with the other.

This works really well because I’m having to just learn on the job and put myself in a situation where I have to just do it. It also works well because the students now know me much better and hopef