Shared Sounds - adapting an Early Years delivery model
Shared Sounds- adapting an Early Years delivery model
Like a great many other organisations riding the Covid-19 storm, The Bureau Centre for the Arts’ Shared Sounds project has had to take drastic measures to change and adapt in the face of the pandemic. Initially planned were weekly music sessions run by partner organisation Note Weavers The Bureau Centre for the Arts in central Blackburn for local targeted families with children aged 0-5 and in addition, a series of outreach sessions for other organisations around Blackburn. The fundamental aims in these sessions were to support and encourage families to engage with music and with each other, and to create a social setting for the communities to connect, share and learn together. Inevitably as Covid-19 restrictions and precautions demanded, we were left with the job of recalibrating the project to be run in a vastly different situation while still fulfilling the original premise.
Moving the first block of core sessions online was our first move, and as the practitioner tasked with doing this, I had to undergo a major adaption of how I worked. Delivering these sessions in a room on my own, with nothing but a screen recording me was a world away from the connection and interaction I’m used to when delivering early years music! I had to abandon some of my usual methods of engaging children and their carers such as encouraging them to suggest ideas, take turns, listen to each other, copy and engage with each other and me, and instead I needed to offer suggestions, variations and inspiration as to how parents and their children could use the activities, join with me and interact with each other at home. As I ran the sessions, I imagined the families there with me, listening, interacting and connecting with me, albeit remotely and unseen! I hoped they would use the session to try possibilities out and learn the songs, singing with me, and thereafter singing the songs with each other, using different variables, props and their own ideas, and importantly, engaging and interacting with each other. It was interesting in the one pre-recorded session I did, that both in my experience and in feedback from viewers, the engagement felt duller and disconnected. I knew no-one was there with me as I was recording the session, and later when they watched it, somehow they knew it too. The live sessions, however, received some impressive positive feedback and have been watched, shared and re-watched by a great many more families than we could have reached with our original planned sessions. The twelve sesssions can be accessed on the Bureau's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrCXSHkoKb635zmSCoafABaHJYsAoFv2I
So the benefits we found in moving the sessions online became a new and exciting aspect of where the project had travelled since the inception. We chose to use Facebook as the initial platform where the live weekly broadcasts were made, with the videos staying available to view thereafter, and also copied onto the various partner organisations YouTube channels. Now we have unlimited reach with the benefits of social media contacts sharing and forwarding these broadcasts to multiple organisations, we have worldwide potential! From a non-tech-savvy person, this has been a massive learning curve, and a daunting aspect to the changes we needed to make in the Shared Sounds project, but one I have tried to embrace with a positive attitude, as have the rest of the team! The fact that twelve 30 minutes sessions are now saved online and are able to be revisited multiple times also supports the training and mentoring strand of the project. The resource will be available to trainee practitioners and music leaders for reference, enabling them to think about different aspects of delivery: pacing, repetition, material, props. As we move back to some face to face sessions, the recorded content along with live interactive sessions will enable emerging music leaders to model different ways of delivery, will provide a focus for discussion and will support their confidence to deliver music activities themselves. In addition, we can refer to the recordings to support wider training and delivery and to support other organisations to share the content and engage musically with their families. A final personal benefit in all the process of recording, sharing, copying, analysing, evaluating, processing and assessing the videos, is that I have also become immune to the feelings of self-loathing, judgement and voice confrontation I previously felt when watching and listening to myself!
In the initial Shared Sounds project framework an important strand to support engagement between parents and their young children was the making and distribution of Music Bags to the families we interact with. These bags contain music activity cards, instruments, pictures and props which we hope will enhance and inspire the engagement and connection within families, in our musical activities. The bags have been designed to be lent to families who attended the face to face sessions, but will also be distributed through links with other community organitions as a starting point for engaging these families and introducing our project. Supporting these Music Bags with the songs and activities in the Facebook live videos, will enable families to use them as inspiration/memory jog before or whilst exploring their bags.
I have been greatly encouraged and heartened by the team involved in this project, the positive can-do attitude in the face of the additional restrictions with which Blackburn has been living since the summer, and the way we have pulled together to adapt our approach. I think the blended model incorporating technology into our previously physical face to face delivery plans has added new dimensions, strengthening the project in the long run, and certainly I personally have benefitted from the experience of being pushed into the use of Facebook live broadcasting and associated technological aspects.
Sorrel Harty September 2020