Engaging Children in Music-Making: A Feasibility Study Using Disabled Musicians as Mentors in Primary Schools
Abstract
:1. Introduction
Evaluating the Project’s Impact
- To determine the extent to which children’s knowledge, aptitude, and confidence in music-making could be improved through their engagement with music mentors with disabilities.
- To obtain children’s views of the music mentors as educators and reactions of their parents to this approach.
- To obtain primary school principals’ and schoolteachers’ views on the learning dynamic between their pupils and the music mentors.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Project Sparks
2.2. School-Based Music-Making
- Identifying the intended learning outcomes associated with each musical activity;
- Role-modelling successful musical compositions and performances;
- Facilitating small groups of pupils to encourage experimentations with the musical building-blocks they had learnt and fostering the sharing of ideas among the pupils;
- Providing pupils with praise and constructive feedback to improve their compositions;
- Answering questions about their musical interests and their disabilities during informal discussions at break and lunch times.
2.3. Participants
2.4. Evaluation of the Project
2.4.1. Children
2.4.2. Parents
2.4.3. Teachers
3. Results
3.1. Pupils’ Perceptions of Music
3.2. Performing Music
3.3. Knowledge of Music
3.4. Pupils Perceptions of Teachers with Disabilities
3.5. Parents’ Responses
“Fantastic project, that encouraged confidence and belief in my son and his abilities.”
“My child just thought the sparks project was brilliant and talked about it and sang every time she came back from school. She loved the leaders and how they taught them songs and instruments and in her words were ‘so amazing’. Well done to all involved as the songs and happiness sprinkled into our family.”
3.6. Teachers’ Responses
“There was such a real positive energy about the place all the time. No joke, from the minute the children arrived until they went home, every child got involved and every child was made to feel welcome and valued.” (F1)
“We actually did a performance at a school assembly where they actually got to see the dance that they had put together There were several students that were so apprehensive to start, actually got up and performed so confidently.” (C1)
“A concert was organised for us in the Waterside Theatre. The children were all invited to come and perform at it, on Saturday afternoon which they did. And the confidence on stage and everything was amazing to watch. And it is all thanks to the Sparks project. It is amazing.” (F1)
“They pushed the children’s self-esteem and confidence to a different level, a level that I have yet to see from other facilitators, natural, just a natural engagement with the children regardless of ability, or social background, or the varying sort of educational or social needs children may have, everybody was included.” (HT)
“When I was talking to parents they said, the children came off the lessons and they were kind of buzzing about it and talking about the lessons… They would go up to their room with instruments, it was like a break away from everything that they could experiment and he said that they were just banging away up in the room at the drums.” (PH)
“Their understanding now of the elements of music, of the texture, and melody and tempo and rhythm and all of that. They have a clear understanding of it and even now we try to play music in the class, they are able to keep the beat and find the beat themselves.”(F1)
“They got the opportunity to learn all the different elements of music, you know, pitch, tempo, dynamics, rhythm. They learned it all through their little songs and rhymes. It also touched on aspects of maths which they really enjoyed. And I thought all the content in the actual project was very child friendly, and so enjoyable for all the children.” (PG1)
“Their maths and their music skills; they were learning about prime numbers and homophones. They learned about resonant pulse and pitch and dynamics. And I then was able to bring that stuff back to school and deliver it then to the other children across the year group.” (CHF)
“They learnt about prime numbers you know, they learned about fractions, it was all reinforced in a more fun way for them. And through wee rhymes and patterns and rhythms, through instruments, they were able to remember it more.” (PG1)
“I would use it now, not necessarily just in music lessons. Like if we are doing literacy and numeracy, I can incorporate music in them now. And we were able to do a PE session based on music. It has changed how I look at music as a curricular subject.” (F1)
“Teachers shy away from the idea of music because of the idea of making a mistake and it being heard and it being judged as teaching something wrong, and you want to make teachers aware that that is not the case.” (F1)
“We wouldn’t always give the time to music, but since going to Project Sparks and doing the teacher training in August, that’s really motivated me. It’s motivated other teachers too. Music’s featuring again in our curriculum here, (after COVID restrictions were lifted) which is great. We weren’t allowed to do it for so long, you know, so it’s great that we can do it now, and we are.” (CHF)
“It gives teachers an appreciation of possible music lessons and how they can link it to the curriculum and so on. So, not only is it just geared towards children, there’s also an element of professional development as well within the programme.” (HT)
“There was a real sadness in the classroom that they weren’t going on with this. They just wanted to keep it going because they were learning so much from it. So, maybe if we could expand on this and expand the learning from it as well.” (F1)
“We have asked them the leaders to do in-service training with our staff because of the way they teach and the influence they had on my teaching, I kind of think this would be really good for other teachers to see.” (F1)
“Music was an area for further development in the school development plan. And that in itself has adjusted the whole position of music and the teaching of music and learning of music in the school. I just wish that we had more funding just to get it right across the school.” (CHF)
“It was a wee bit time consuming as regards to the weighting for the other areas of the curriculum like say literacy and numeracy and so on. The teachers found that they were playing a wee bit of catch-up with regard to all the other areas. If it had have been maybe done over more weeks; just had it have maybe sort of spread out it would have made it less pressurising.” (HT)
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
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Pre-Don’t Know | Post-Don’t Know | Pre-Correct | Post-Correct |
---|---|---|---|
2.88 (4.83) | 0.39 (0.83) | 3.12 (1.95) | 5.78 (1.34) |
Items | Before | After |
---|---|---|
What kind of teacher would you imagine a disabled person being? Note: % rated excellent | 22.8% | 52.0% |
How smart or stupid do you imagine disabled people to be? | 7.65 (1.95) | 9.16 (1.59) |
How musically talented or not talented do you think disabled people are? | 7.87 (2.13) | 9.74 (0.66) |
How much would you want a disabled person to teach you? | 6.48 (2.57) | 9.40 (1.33) |
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Share and Cite
McCarron, E.; Curran, E.; McQueen, P.; McConkey, R. Engaging Children in Music-Making: A Feasibility Study Using Disabled Musicians as Mentors in Primary Schools. Educ. Sci. 2023, 13, 72. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010072
McCarron E, Curran E, McQueen P, McConkey R. Engaging Children in Music-Making: A Feasibility Study Using Disabled Musicians as Mentors in Primary Schools. Education Sciences. 2023; 13(1):72. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010072
Chicago/Turabian StyleMcCarron, Eamonn, Erica Curran, Paul McQueen, and Roy McConkey. 2023. "Engaging Children in Music-Making: A Feasibility Study Using Disabled Musicians as Mentors in Primary Schools" Education Sciences 13, no. 1: 72. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010072
APA StyleMcCarron, E., Curran, E., McQueen, P., & McConkey, R. (2023). Engaging Children in Music-Making: A Feasibility Study Using Disabled Musicians as Mentors in Primary Schools. Education Sciences, 13(1), 72. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010072