Observation 1: 5/3/2016

Jackson Baird

Term: Spring 2016  Target 1 (for year):

Session: Semibreves
Feedback Building up suitable repertoire and
Activity
Teaching with: Cathy Tozer transition activities.
 This
Children: 2 (no parents)
activity involved you and Cathy
Target 2: teaching the children how to play the first line
Tuned
Observed by: Finn
of theRos
hello song on glockenspiels/xylophones. You played it to themand
and asked
Understanding Crescendo assessment
percussion them what song
Planned by: Jackson, Jo & Finn they thought it was. Make sure you give the children time to
how it can be used effectively.
/ Hello answer a question after you ask it – longer than you would think! You told them it
song was the hello song, but K then picked up that it was the hello song after playing it
himself.
 When suggesting that they sing the hello song, all they really wanted to do was
play the instruments, so it may have been better to suggest that before getting the
instruments out of after putting them away, so they weren’t distracted (2).
 Asking them which sound they preferred (wooden or metal) was a nice touch; it
worked well (3), though asking them if they could describe the sound would be too
difficult for this age, in general.
 You gave them a nice amount of time to improvise and experiment, but I would get
the children to stop completely before you ask them to start playing in a
group/altogether – otherwise they would still be engrossed in their own playing
(2).
 It worked really well to get them to split the tune up and play a bit each. I might
have got them to sing along with the playing to enable them to get the timing
more easily.
 The transition into this was very smooth, you just started to sing the Song sack
Song Sack song rather than speaking; the children sat down immediately, ready to start.
Great! (2)
 With this song, I would suggest other animals that move at different tempi (e.g.
Snail Snail cheetah, horse, snake etc. Next door, we have to sing about unicorns every time
we sing this one!) – get the children to suggest which animals you could use. This
can make it more active; as long as you keep an eye on running! (1)

Grandma I wanted to feedback on this, even though it was not part of your agreed
Rap (not observation time. The beatboxing for Grandma Rap was a lovely way to example
technically another way of adding to a song and a great skill to teach the children (1). You dealt
part of with the fact that A wasn’t so interested, and helped K to fit it in with Cathy and A’s
obs!) singing/rapping. When your group had performed to the other group, you were
really welcoming to the other children who wanted to learn how to beatbox, but
also let K take the lead with the teaching of beatboxing when he wanted to (4).

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 Examples of decided targets: Examples of other targets met:
1. Repertoire 4. Inclusion
2. Transitions
3. Assessment/children’s targets

Overall feedback: This was a nice session, particularly the way you encouraged the use of various
different timbre, percussion and beatboxing. It can be more difficult teaching a session to just 2
children than teaching a larger group, but you managed the behaviour relatively well and the
children got a lot out of it. It was nice to see you taking a real lead on the teaching and I would
suggest that you and Cathy make a decision before the session about which bits you are each going
to lead; note it down on the plan and then try and stick to it. The more you have to discuss between
you in the session, the more time you are leaving for the children to lose interest. There was a lot to
keep track of in the session and you kept the children’s interest well! The beatboxing was fantastic;
please do keep up contributing to the spontaneous music making like that – let’s make the most of
all of our individual skills to give the children the best possible musical experiences.

To improve:
 Repertoire: Learn each focus song as if you are going to be leading the session on your own;
the more confident you are with the song, the more effective your teaching will be and the
more creative you can be with it.
 Questioning: When asking the children a question, give them plenty of time to answer,
maybe with a prompt. Only answer for them if they really look unsure or do not want to
answer. The younger they are, the more time they need to process your question.
 Transitions: I would use more singing in between activities than speaking – it gets the
children’s attention better. Just make up a tune to whatever you want to say (or put it to a
well-known tune!) if you need to: that’s how I originally wrote the Song Sack song…

Own feedback: Use this space to make notes about how you felt the session went and what you will
take from it to improve your own practice.

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distributed outside of Crescendo
Music.
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Property of Crescendo. Not to be +447827931824 Crescendouk@gmail.com www.crescendolondon.org
distributed outside of Crescendo
Music.
www.facebook.com/crescendomusicclasses @crescendouk