Today we had our first music lecture and workshop along with our last drama workshop. In the lecture we focused on how music can benefit people in many ways and how important music education is. The government recognise how enriching music education can be for pupils in schools (Michael Gove, 2011) and this was shown to us today through the knowledge passed on. We learned of programmes, both free and fee paying, running that we could get our classes and schools involved with when we are qualified and the benefits and joy these would bring to our pupils and colleagues. These programmes have greatly benefited many schools and due to these, huge improvements of skills have been shown.

In drama we participated in the other groups’ micro-teaching presentations. This was a great way of consolidating what we have learned over the past weeks as over all the groups we covered all the drama conventions we have learned about in this module. This was hugely beneficial as a learner as it acted as revision of the conventions. We then studied one final convention called role on the wall. This involves drawing a figure and writing inside the drawing what the pupils think the character thinks of themselves whilst around the edges has words describing what other characters think about them. We did this exercise today based on a children’s book.  

This is a very useful exercise as it helps get into the characters feelings and I can see myself using this convention in the future in my teaching of a drama class. This convention makes the participants think deeply about the character which can be beneficial for the pupils in my class if they are going to be playing or working with the character to fully get into the mindset of the character.

In music, we discussed how music can make us feel and how it can change the way we are feeling. This is a topic that could be discussed with pupils to link with health and well-being and emotions.  We then listened to a song and had to write a story and make a storyboard inspired by the song. My group heard the song as an adventure and wrote a story about a cat.

This was a creative task that could easily be done in schools with perhaps a shorter song for younger ages. This lesson made me think about how a sound can influence the images you see in your head. I enjoyed using my imagination to picture the story to the piece of music. It made me realise that all children should have access to an education that contains music as music can have a positive effect on not only mental but also physical health (All Party Parliamentary Group for Music Education, 2019). This incorporation of music and creativity into writing and literacy again shows the links with other curricular areas and how beneficial music education can be (Safford and Barrs, 2005).

Both of the tasks completed today in the workshops could be adapted to suit primary school pupils and are tasks I would consider incorporating in my lessons of the expressive arts in the future.

 

 

All Party Parliamentary Group for Music Education (2019) Music Education: State of the Nation. [Online] Available: https://www.ism.org/images/files/State-of-the-Nation-Music-Education-WEB.pdf [Accessed: 8 October 2019]

Department for Education and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (2011) Music Education in England: A Review by Darren Henley. [Online] Available: https://assets. publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/175432/DFE-00011-2011.pdf [Accessed: 8 October 2019]

Safford, K. and Barrs, M. (2005) Creativity and Literacy: Many Routes to Meaning. [Online] Available: https://clpe.org.uk/sites/default/files/Many%20routes%20to%20meaning%20childrens%20language%20and%20literacy%20learning%20in%20creative%20arts%20work_0.pdf [Accessed: 08 October 2019].