It's late-ish on a Saturday evening and instead of propping up a bar somewhere, a femme fatale with nowhere to go but underneath of the nearest table, I'm fine-tuning my lesson plans.
Up till now, I've been able to teach without having to communicate much in the way of detail to my lovely colleagues.
On the whole, it's probably a safe assumption that what with Harvest Festival and Christmas plus class assemblies and summer productions filling up a lot of the year quite nicely, you can probably - without taxing your powers of imagination too much - have a fair idea of what music teachers are up to in their lessons.
But now, thanks to government regulation, that's no longer enough - especially when it comes to reception children. I have, not just to teach them, but to observe them, listen to them and write down their comments so that I can make sure that each one is developing on government lines.
I have until the end of June to confirm that each child 'moves expressively to music. When creating music he or she explores rhythm, tempo, pitch and/or duration and shows awareness of repetition and phrases in music.'
Naturally, it has nothing to say about what happens if they don't do any of these.
To make absolutely sure you understand what's required, you're given the following example as a guideline.
'Molly wants to make a sound like the rain shaker. She spends a long time dropping beans on to the drum and talks about the sounds they make as they bounce on to it.'
How long is a long time?
Am I doomed to see precious seconds, minutes, hours or even days of my ever-diminishing lifespan being frittered away while the nation's four and five year olds do me the honour of sharing their deepest throughts to the accompaniment of dried beans cascading on to drum membrane? Is it possible I might even die, drowned in a sea of pulses and post-toddler platitudes?
But I've got off lightly. Reception class teachers have to complete, apparently, well over 100 observations during the course of the year. I ask one what she thinks.
"They're leaving the procession in droves," she says.
So as I turn to a fabbo song book, I'm struck by its title:
'Alleluya - 77 songs for thinking people.'
Clearly, too many people in education have been reading the other version - for the unthinking ones.
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11 comments:
Too many hurdles. What happens when the four year old wants to make a noise like a rain shaker and pours water onto the drum membrane?
Our government is barmy.
Hi, Cath - how lovely to hear from you so quickly. Can't comment on your blog - it's invitation only...just tried.
There are a lot of civil servants that are complete imbeciles and who do not belong in the jobs they now hold or, to put it better, those jobs should be discarded completely along with the people who hold them. It's nothing but a bunch of nincompoop and a waste of precious time.
What are "reception children"? Are they what we call kindergarteners? I'm so glad you're posting again.
What will they dream-up next? I think this country is slowly going mad...
Well, not so very slowly, in fact - we're hot-foot to self-destruction in a rain shaker, it seems to me!
We wouldn't mind so much perhaps, if the children emerged able to read and write properly...
Good to see you about again though, and thanks for your comment on mine. Shall post you a reply there the moment I can think of some news.
Don't get me started on this.
I watched our local playgroup (old-fashioned word for preschool, but involves the word "play" so not popular these days) turn from a place where 3 and 4 year olds had fun, while the two playleaders and the duty mum joined in and helped out, to a "learning environment" where the children had to occupy themselves, while the playleaders wandered round with clipboards observing them, and the duty mum had to serve snack "cafe style" for pretty much the whole time.
The "cafe style" thing was because the inspectors felt that sitting 20 kids down at the same time and giving them all a biscuit and juice was limiting their personal freedom, and not helping them develop the ability to make choices. Some would be hungry, some wouldn't. Therefore, there had to be a small table, which kids could come to as and when they liked, and have their juice and biscuit as and when they wanted. The whole thing drove me NUTS.
It got to the point where the leaders would stand the kids in a circle. One would be in the middle and roll a ball to each child, asking them to kick it back. The other stood with the clipboard, ticking off the "able to kick a ball" box on each child's chart. I preferred the old days, where they cordoned off half the hall, and let them loose with a few balls. It seemed to involve running about and having fun. Call me old-fashioned.
I said don't get me started.
Well said. The assessment criteria is overwhelming. Reception teachers have my respect; planning for the foundation stage is complicated enough but to assess what seems like every single utterance and movement the 4 year olds in your charge make is just silly. The difference between winter and summer birthdays is so wide at this stage; the difference between boys and girls...there is so much to consider, so why do we have to label them at such an early age;they are children not machines
I, for one, am incredibly impressed you don't wear ear defenders to school. My husband is a creative in the music business, and I used to be, before I started creating other more structured, human-shaped....erm....humans...Our house is full of music and we have been keen to share our love of it with our little boy, from a very young age...yes...even in the womb...he knew how to do reverse para-diddles as soon as he came out. I'm no slouch when it comes to teaching him useful life skills, clearly. But, the point I am getting to, in my tedious and rambling...erm...ramble, is this. I would like to think that our child has been exposed to higher levels of musical stimulation from birth, but his first two (admittedly French) school reports have marked this down as his worse subject. I am confused. Any suggestions? Apart from the obvious, that we are dreadful parents and even worse musicians...
Good to see you back, by the way!
Mya x
Beaurocracy is so simply ridiculous!
Our future generation will be experts in everything. And know very little about life, if we leave it to the government to decide their fate.
CJ xx
I used to rather love those comments from my kids' nursery staff that followed same model. Whilst the surface was all bland 'facilitating the child's development' type crap, you could see there was a compelling subtext.
Eg 'Fingers is playing with the sand. Another child comes to the sand table and tries to take Fingers' spade. Fingers says "NO. MINE". He takes the spade back from the child.
Key skill: Fingers is becoming a skilled communicator.
Suggestions: Help Fingers to understand that disembowelling other children with a rake is not the best way of communicating.
Courage.
Why do you never come over to mine? I wish you would.
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