Practice Pals Make Perfect?
Herbert Thompson Junior School lies in the centre of Ely, an economically disadvantaged suburb of west Cardiff. Approximately 56% of the schools’ 211 pupils are entitled to free school meals, compared to an average for Wales of 17.4% (WAG, 2008). The school’s intake comprises many less-able and few able pupils and63% of the pupils are designated as having special educational needs (Estyn 2008) . This article tells the story of a series of innovative music projects run by The Music Development Team (MDT) for Cardiff County and the Vale of Glamorgan Music Service at the school and an innovative scheme called Practice Pals planned to involve conservatoire students from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in supporting access to instrumental music for some of the most disadvantaged young people in Cardiff.
Music Development Project Background
In the summer term of 2007, The Music Development Team (MDT) for Cardiff County and the Vale of Glamorgan Music Service, led by Music Development Officer Emma Coulthard, began a 10-week project entitled Global Music Maker at Herbert Thompson Junior School in Cardiff. The project was designed to develop the musical skills of one year 4 class of pupils through whole class activities. The project was also intended to allow every child to develop their musicianship on an equal footing addressing issues of inclusion and equality of access to music in the school. The theme chosen for the project by the MDT was that of Native American music as this had been noted to be particularly appropriate for its use of circle activities and cyclical patterns. Over a series of 10 one hour sessions of performing, composing and listening the pupils were invited to perform on the Tesco stage at the Wales Millennium Centre. The commitment of the school to the project was witnessed by the fact that a member of staff made costumes for all the pupils to wear for their performance. The performance was very well received by the audience and was judged to have been such a success by the school’s headteacher Mrs Debbie Lewis, that she invited the MDT to return to the school at the beginning of the following academic year, this time to run a larger scale project with the original year 4 class and their counterpart class, both now entering year 5.
The intention this time was for the team to expand on the egalitarian philosophy of the original project by allowing more children to have opportunities to play musical instruments. The team approached this through an initial 6 weekly sessions of musicianship development coupled with opportunities to hear and see a variety of different instruments including flute, recorder, violin, cello and African djembe drums. The thinking behind this was that it was important for pupils to have some background knowledge of a variety of instruments so that they could make an informed choice when the time came for them to choose an instrument they would like to learn to play. To allow them to help pupils make the most appropriate choice of instrument, the MDT also engaged in a detailed exercise of gathering information about the individual pupils based on observation and discussion with their class teacher on qualities such as concentration, perseverance and behaviour (although this was noted to not always be an issue in musical activities for pupils who presented as having behavioural difficulties elsewhere). Pupils were asked to line up according to which instrument they would like to have an opportunity to learn to play. To the MDTs surprise the longest line was for the cello. Unfortunately, the funds only existed to purchase 4 cellos and so these opportunities were restricted. After some negotiation therefore, the final programme comprised two large group tuition ensembles on djembe and recorder, a group of 4 cellists and a group of 6 violinists.
Sessions took the form of an initial 15 minute group activity involving a warm up and learning a song, with simple instrumental accompaniment parts performed on the instruments. There then followed half hour group instrumental sessions and a final 15 minute plenary session where pupils and teachers shared progress and informed each other of their achievements during that session. Ms. Coulthard emphasised the importance of sharing with pupils their progress at the end of each session as being vital to building pupils’ confidence and self esteem about their playing. Due to the financial value of the instruments involved, all access to the musical instruments occurred only during school time under supervision. By Christmas time however many of the pupils involved in the project were begging to be allowed to take the instruments home to practise. As Ms Coulthard said ‘they have a hunger for practise’. Unfortunately, the school and the MDT could not allow this given the difficulty of replacing the instruments should they become lost or damaged. Furthermore, progress in practice is likely to be limited or even retrogressive in the early stages of musical learning unless supervised by someone with understanding of the desired outcomes, hence the presence of parents as co-learners, as in the Suzuki method. This issue was seen as presenting a barrier to further development of pupils’ technical and musical skill.
Two lucky pupils received flutes as family presents for Christmas and one received a cello for her birthday. Whilst this was a wonderful indication of pupil enthusiasm and parental support for the project it raised the age old issue of lack of equal access to musical instrument learning for those pupils whose families were not able to afford to purchase instruments. Moreover the MDT had by this time been requested by the school to deliver a scheme to the whole of year 6 based on rock band skills which was proving highly popular. The renown of the school for its musical prowess was spreading, with increasing numbers of invitations to perform, including appearances at St David’s Hall, to an audience of 2000 people to a tumultuous reception, and at the Senydd, home of the Welsh Assembly Government. In an innovative move, Ms. Coulthard approached the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, (RWCMD-the conservatoire of Wales) and initiated a project now under development entitled ‘Practice Pals’. The Practice Pals scheme will team current students and recent graduates of the RWCMD with pupils from Herbert. RWCMD students will attend Herbert Thompson at lunchtime one day a week to mentor junior school pupils and supervise small group practice sessions (2 or 3 pupils). It is hoped that this will allow pupils to access the skills of reading staff notation in addition to developing their technique on their instrument. This is seen as useful professional development for the students, particularly those who may be going to work in England on the Wider Opportunities schemes funded by government there to introduce musical instrument tuition into primary schools. One of the interesting features of this Practice Pals scheme is that it places responsibility for taking advantage of the scheme with Herbert Thompson pupils. They have to take the initiative to sign up for the scheme if they want to improve on their instruments. Similarly it is hoped that RWCMD students will be involved from an early stage in the planning delivery and training for the scheme and may eventually assume ownership of it. It is possible that it might become a core part of the RWCMD programmes subject to the results of the pilot scheme shortly to begin.
It appears to me essential that schemes such as this are initiated widely to address the issues of equality of access to musical learning. For schemes such as Wider Opportunities to result in progressive and sustained learning in the playing of musical instruments there are barriers to learning other than those raised by finance, important as this is. Closely related however the barriers are raised to progress and enthusiasm by differential access to supervised practice. Pupils who do not benefit from practice supervised by someone with knowledge and understanding of music may well not progress as do their peers. They are likely therefore to lose motivation and drop out of their instrumental learning programmes. Schemes such as the one being developed between Cardiff’s MDT and the RWCMD seem particularly apposite and intelligent in addressing such issues. I look forward to reporting on their future progress.
Ruth Wright