Last week, we discussed the art we had witnessed on placement. In truth most people had not seen any arts practiced within class and those who had noted that it was extremely limited. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we are only on placement on a Thursday but I find it no coincidence that everyone had a similar experience. The arts are virtually fading.
With regards to my own experience on placement I have witnessed three different art lessons. However, these art lessons were related to the class topic or remembrance day. I also noted that the children were given resources which could’ve possibly limited their creativity. It is our job as future teachers to bring back the arts and allow children to reach their full potential.
With regards to music, Bloomfield and Childs (2002) explain that tuned percussion instruments can be useful in the classroom to demonstrate the connections between the music and the action. It should also be noted that their can be some barriers in implementing the arts within the classroom. In my placement school, they had no physical resources for music such as instruments or even a specific room (as the school is open plan) and therefore this makes teaching music difficult.
In the music input we were learning to play and read music. To make it easy we used shapes to represent notes (e.g. a square being a crochet and a circle being a quaver) and used drumsticks to play beats on the floor. Following a few practices to backing tracks, we then were then given either a glockenspiel or a xylophone to practice with. I found this workshop difficult as I have no prior experience in reading music. However, I think this is a great way to introduce reading music to children in a fun and engaging way. This is a good lesson in introducing music at first level and can be progressed in the upper school. “I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound, rhythm, pitch and dynamics.” EXA 1-17a
References
Bloomfield, A & Childs. J. (2002) Teaching Integrated Arts in the Primary School. London: David Fulton Publishers.
Scottish Government. (2004) Curriculum for Excellence. [Online] Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed: 14 December 2017
