Musical Beginnings
Introduction
Musical Beginnings is Greenwich Music School’s flagship early years music project, in partnership with Quaggy Development Trust and funded by Youth Music, improving access and growing sustained music-making opportunities for the 0-5s in Greenwich.
The Musical Beginnings pack includes a shaker and unique songbook with accompanying online videos, full of songs and activities to use in everyday routines and moments.
Access
Partnership with QDT helps Musical Beginnings reach families facing significant economic barriers to music education.
QDT children’s centres serve areas of significant economic deprivation. Within each of the Children’s Centre areas are Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) that fall into the 40% most deprived in the country.
Four centres have LSOAs that are in the 30% or 20% most deprived neighbourhoods. September 2019 figures show around 4700 0-4 year-olds living in the GWCC area. 85% are registered with the Children’s Centres. Of those registered, 37% are from workless households, and 32% from lone parent families.
Around 1200 of the children are under two and 240 children currently have places on the government funded Together for Twos programme for low income families.
The project was delivered in partnership with Quaggy Development Trust (QDT). It took place across five children’s centres and a nursery, in Greenwich November 2020 – April 2022.
Outcomes and impact
Musical Beginnings grows daily music-making opportunities for 0-5s
In Musical Beginnings, Greenwich Music School:
Growing QDT staff skills:
- to initiate musical interactions with babies and children
- to scaffold and support babies’ and children’s musical play
- to spot opportunities to interact musically with babies and children
Growing parent/carer confidence:
- to interact musically with their baby
- to explore music at home with their baby
Monitoring our impact
We monitored our impact through a combination of:
- Weekly and end-of-course discussions with parents and carers
- Structured journals of observations and reflection by GMS and QDT staff
- Reflective discussions with QDT staff – audio recordings
- Online questionnaires to record QDT staff’s use of ukuleles in their daily work
This process of journaling, reflection and discussion enables us to gather rich and detailed records of the impact of our work, and embeds ongoing workforce development.
- Promoting discussion, skill-sharing, and exchange of ideas
- Encouraging constructive reflection and analysis
- Feeding into future practice and a culture of enthusiasm for music
Weekly discussion with parents/carers attending the sessions for 0-1s also enabled music leaders to respond and adapt each session’s content for the families attending.
Parents/carers
Parents and carers attending our weekly sessions with 0-1 year olds discussed their music-making at home week-by-week, and at the end of the course.
Before the course...
... they described limitations on their music-making at home before the course - particularly to well-known nursery rhymes:
- “I had been singing at home, but only the more well-known nursery rhymes”
- “Before, there was a limited repertoire of what to sing – I didn’t want to sing wind the bobbin up or Adele any more!”
- “Although we had nursery rhymes it was hard to find songs for doing activities and tasks”
... limited confidence in the significance of their baby’s musical play, and their ability to support it:
- “She didn’t seem to be engaging with music at home as much”
- “(I) didn’t know any baby songs that seemed to entertain”
- “I felt I had to spend money on instruments”
- “I hadn’t thought about including music in my babies life before”
- “(Before) I didn’t think that banging saucepans etc was making music, just (thought) of it as making noise”
Over the course, they described...
... an increase in enjoyment, and in day-to-day music-making with baby:
- “We’ve been singing so much at home!”
- “It’s been great for music-making to feel so social”
- “It’s been so valuable to share music making with each other, and with other families too!”
- “It’s been great to use the songs to help Luca bond with his brother. We sing and play all together now at home”
- “Ellis’s mum mentioned she had been using the online videos at home, which had been very helpful for remembering the songs” - Martha, GMS Music Leader
- “Several parents were requesting songs from the week before, mentioning they’d tried singing them at home” - Martha, GMS Music Leader
... a change in their music-making, from set songs, to more flexible integration into daily life and routines:
- “This week I’ve started to play nursery Rhymes to Toby when he gets upset and it calms him down immediately”
- “We’ve started singing Hey Jude at naptime and bedtime to help Luca understand that it’s time to sleep”
- “I have found music making to be a great way to bond as a family as my other son joins in when I sing with Tiara. Now I sometimes sing rather than talk at bath-time and bedtime”
- “(Now) it’s easier to think of songs for doing things”
- “The course has introduced me to incorporating music into daily routine, and I now know more songs, not just nursery rhymes”
- “Edie’s mum said that she was replacing moments where she might have given Edie a toy to distract her/keep her occupied, with one of the songs instead” - Martha, GMS Music Leader
... new confidence in the simplicity of making music with baby, and their unique ability to do this:
- “The course has made me realise that I don’t need to buy expensive instruments online when I can so easily make them at home”
- “I now feel I can use the things we have learned in the sessions at home”
- “(Before) I didn’t think that banging saucepans etc was making music, just (thought) of it as making noise” “Now I think anything we can bang together is music really”
- “It’s been so great for me as well as my baby. After each session I feel more cheerful. Each week feels like an achievement!”
- “(At home) we used the idea of filling bottles with rice and using them as a shaker”
- “(I’ve) noticed a difference in enjoyment of songs – she gets excited when she knows songs are coming up”
- “I now use instruments at home too, not just singing”
- “I’ve really liked how the songs use the names of the baby. Oliver seems so much more aware of his name”
- “Several parents mentioned how surprised they were with how easy it is to make instruments at home” - Martha, GMS Music Leader
- “It seems like the parents (now) know the songs really well and are confident singing to their babies” - Elizabeth QDT Wellbeing Practitioner
- “There was definitely some reservation about singing at the start of the course – a few parents mentioned that they hadn’t really sung to baby before. It was incredible to see that change as the weeks went on, and the volume of the singing literally getting louder week by week” - Martha, GMS Music Leader
- “At some points towards the end of the course, it almost seemed as though parents forgot anyone else was in the room, other than them and their baby” - Martha, GMS Music Leader
- “Confidence has grown – (parents/carers are) beginning to sing more and engage more; more confident to try things at home like treasure baskets and new songs; more confident in group discussions; giving their child more eye contact, touch and engaging deeper; they seem to be enjoying it more themselves” - Leanne QDT Wellbeing Practitioner
Skill development in the QDT team
The problem at the moment, and it is a nationwide issue, is around training of practitioners - they are given limited time to be in rooms and learn about music and how it can be taught to support young children’s musical development.
Having a musician who can talk to us about tone, pitch, timbre, notes, scales etc., and their importance and relevance, and then the practitioner and the musician coming up with an early years friendly way of teaching the children – these skills will have a long lasting impact on each child’s music education”
- QDT Children’s Centre Lead, Lis Day
Ukulele training
11 members of QDT staff attended a five-week course in Ukulele – learning to play simple chords, and ways to use ukulele in their daily practice with babies and children.
Of the 11 participants, 10 said they did not play any instrument at the start. One played basic piano.
Participants completed online journals to record how they used the ukulele in their work in a given week.
The pandemic limited staff's opportunities to work face to face with families using ukulele. However, seven participants made one journal entry and one participant logged entries for five weeks.
Journals described staff use of ukuleles in a range of situations...
- “Bouncing babies” speech and language sessions
- Children’s centres (outside of formal sessions)
- Nursery
- Other organised groups/stay-and-plays
... with different ages, and group sizes, both formal and informal.
Six participants who completed their ukulele training at a point in the pandemic when they were able to work face to face completed a final questionnaire, having used ukulele in their own practice for a number of weeks.
Their answers show notable growth in skills, and confidence to use these with babies and children.
Listen to Nursery Practitioner Sophia describe using the ukulele to calm a distressed child
A QDT staff member proudly shows the ukulele pick which now lives with her staff ID badge.
“I will continue to play the ukulele and use this not only within our nursery setting, but at our Stay and Play and any other sessions.”
- QDT staff 2021
"I have learned numerous songs to play on the ukulele and have learned new strategies to implement it in my practice." - Tony, QDT Early Years Assistant
"I now know how to play a ukulele even if it is only a few chords I know I can still play a lot of songs with that knowledge and that is thanks to this training." - Leela, QDT Early Years Assistant
Nursery mentoring project
... the children were flocking the music hut and they were in there and two girls got the drum and the shakers that we made in there, and they started playing the drum in there - they’re shaking the shakers and transporting them back and forth to the home corner and then they start walking around singing and we had a band; so I got one of the drums as well so we were like doing a band and she’s going around the climbing frame singing and shaking, up and down and she’s just singing along and she wanted everybody else to join in…”
- Sophia, QDT Nursery Practitioner
GMS Music Leader, Fiona Long, also led a mentoring project in Quaggy nursery in the Autumn term 2021. Working together with Nursery Practitioner Sophia, they worked to grow opportunities for musical play in the setting – including a Music Hut to encourage musical play - and with the nursery team to use their ukuleles in their daily work.
Project-wide – through nursery mentoring, ukulele lessons, and observations of the parent and baby sessions – QDT staff members described:
... growing understanding of early musical development:
- “I’ve learned so much more about the effect of music on all areas of their development”
- “... over the few weeks that we’ve done this, I’ve really learnt much more about music and play than I really did know in the first place …”
- “As I said at the beginning, music is something that I love, but on this scale … it’s like I’m learning a new section of music in a sense when it comes to children - the effect it has on a different level” - Sophia, QDT Nursery Practitioner
- “It’s something that’s in them and now coming out of them. More so I can see in their play - triggered from since you (Fiona Long) been coming here” - Sophia, QDT Nursery Practitioner
... growing understanding of what babies’ and young children’s music-making looks like:
- “And any instrument goes, it doesn't matter … some just pick up a shaker bottle …you know, they’ve got a car and because that car makes a noise - backwards and forwards to make the noise, they’re making their own music.” Leela, QDT Early Years Assistant
- “We are seeing more with our eyes and listening more so it doesn’t just sound like noise … we do know that music has an impact. And we do know because the EYFS talk about music … but on a different level now it’s more focused” - Sophia, QDT Nursery Practitioner
... growing understanding of how to scaffold and support it:
- “I know it’s having an impact because they’re not just listening to a song and playing along with songs (from the speaker) that we used to do a lot; now we will play without songs and the children are very interested in the sounds that we’re making, not just the tambourine sounds but the triangle sounds and the little blocks that we’ve got, so I can see the impact there and the interest in children …” - Sophia, QDT Nursery Practitioner
- “...how it (music) can fit into everything little thing you do …everything around you can be turned into music that can be stimulated for children which is really very good.” - Tony, QDT
- “... I can improvise it and do it (use a big lycra fabric) with everything and anything … and the children love it … they can hide underneath it, they can do anything … once they start I can go with the flow of what they’re doing and it's just a lot of engagement there …” - Sophia, QDT Nursery Practitioner
And a growing culture of enthusiasm, and positivity about music:
- “...now because everyone’s doing it it’s just natural.”
- “The adults weren’t interested (before) - cos I think music’s not a big thing, but now Quaggy’s made it a big thing and the ukulele and everything going on, the children have shown more interest, especially that music shed, it’s like the best thing ever…” - Ursula, QDT Deputy Early Years Lead
- “it doesn’t matter what sound it is, it doesn’t matter what instrument , it doesn’t matter what object they’re using. Now everyone is running to hear - ‘oh, he’s playing music, he’s drumming, he’s that” - Sophia, QDT Nursery Practitioner
QDT Early Years Assistant Leela describes the children playing musically with food, in the nursery home corner
Project analysis
Musical Beginnings was successful in delivering our aims to increase music-making opportunities for 0-5s in Greenwich, by increasing the skills and confidence of parents, carers, and children’s centre staff to make music day-to-day.
Growing concrete musical skills through ukulele lessons gave staff new knowledge, and renewed confidence and enthusiasm to initiate musical interaction with babies and children. Training, mentoring and shared discussion - about musical development and children’s musical play - enabled them to spot more opportunities to share in and respond to children’s music.
Sessions for parent/carers with 0-1s that centred on tools and ideas for making music at home, with regular opportunities to discuss babies’ music together, were effective in growing families’ confidence to make music together, and increasing the frequency and variety of musical experiences the babies were exposed to in their day-to-day lives.
The pandemic significantly impacted the reach of this project – particularly the sessions for parents/carers and 0-1s. Lockdowns prevented sessions from happening, and the return to face-to-face brought limitations on group sizes, and partial attendance due to illness or isolation.
Verifying the status of participants as facing economic barriers proved a challenge. Referral routes through the children’s centre to the sessions for 0-1s ensured geographic proximity to areas of economic deprivation, but there were no restrictions beyond this and in our surveys no participant self-identified as specifically "facing economic barriers to accessing music education." This response may have have related to completing the survey during a free session, so therefore they hadn’t met a barrier in this instance.
Our creation of the Musical Beginnings songbook, with accompanying videos, did much to address reach – helping us reach a further 200 families, and identify new referral routes for future projects. Their distribution enabled us to initiate new connections for future partnerships with Woolwich Library, Charlton Toy Library, and Mammakind baby bank. The songbooks act as an additional referral route for families, who might not otherwise consider attending a music session. QDT staff also suggested that running sessions for a longer duration in each children’s centre would give community teams greater opportunity to invite families to sessions and provide support for them to attend.
The legacy of our workforce development at QDT was modified by staff turnover, with a proportion of those who took part in the project moving on during or after its completion. However, amidst this, some staff members clearly gained a huge amount and remain strong advocates to their new colleagues for the approaches and ideas they learned. Future iterations of the project would benefit from a multi-layered approach, combining trust-wide training and development, with more in-depth mentoring and support for key staff members in more permanent roles.
It is clear from this project that continuing to expand the partnership structure of Musical Beginnings, and supporting the growth of an enthusiastic and skilled workforce, will greatly enhance and expand music-making opportunities for 0-5s in Greenwich.
