Journey of an emerging Music Leader within Two Rivers, a secondary SEND school.
Two Rivers High School is a special school in Tamworth for students aged between 11 -- 19. There are currently 180 young people in the school, and many of these have multiple learning needs. These include specific communication and language difficulties, challenging behaviours, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, physical difficulties and medical needs. All students have a statement of special educational needs.
This Project has been encouraging 180 students to engage with music through the delivery of inclusive and accessible large group sessions and the provision of, and support to access, progression and performance opportunities in school and the wider community. This work has developed musical, social and emotional skills of participants. Furthermore this approach has become embedded in the school and best practice shared with other organisations across the SEND Network.
This Blog shows an Emerging Music leader's experience in the setting.
Level Up Blog Post 2
This term, I will have more opportunities to work by myself with the students too. I will be under the observation of the teacher and teaching assistant but my colleague Chris has a few days off so it will give me chance to prepare lessons and get organised enough to lead lessons by myself.
It’s really important that we get all the information we need to complete the criteria for Arts Award so we have been recording the student’s practical work over the past couple of weeks. We will carry on doing so until we sit down and filter through all the information we have to decide which is best and most relevant for the award.
Our lower set year 10 group have still been really disruptive still although one week, we started off really well. As it was coming up to Halloween, they had the task of coming up with their own scary story and sound effects to go with the story. We split into two groups. I worked with one and Chris worked with the other. My group did brilliantly well. They came up with their own story about a haunted house, came up with a title and did made fantastic use of their voices and resources to come up with clever sound effects. I was so pleased with them.
While the class were great as this task, not long after, the behaviour deteriorated and control was regained by another teacher who had to come and intervene.
The week after, the teaching assistant wanted to try using a visual timetable with this group. This was a great way to get the students settled and for them to feel comfortable that they knew what we were doing every lesson. Apparently visual timetables are used lots throughout the school to gain control and for children who find change and disorder very difficult to deal with. The visual time table worked quite well because the students were interested in what was going to happen next but the two girls that cause the most disruption in the group were taken out and given another task. Having them taken out was a quick decision made by the TA and actually kept the rest of the class focused and calm. We’ve decided to keep it this way and see how it goes for the next few weeks.
We are keeping on track with Arts Awards too and are making great progress with them with the upper set year 10s and sixth form.