My community sings

Rosewood School in Southampton helps young peoole with profound and multiple learning disabilities. Jill Goodwin tells how singing through the day means more than words can say.

At Rosewood School we work with children who are, cognitively speaking, very young, so the spoken word is a weak currency here. We use singing all the time because it’s a way in – a way of making contact with children who can’t be reassured through language.

The moments that lift my heart most are when we sing together first thing in the morning and last thing before we leave. We gather in the large school hall – all the children, staff, the children’s escorts and drivers – and sing a simple welcome song or goodbye song. These are special moments for everyone involved, providing structure at busy times when the escorts are helping children between the car park, school hall and classrooms. Singing joins us all in one purpose and gives focus to what’s otherwise potentially a quite random experience for the young people.

The idea for welcome and goodbye songs came about following a Vocal Force training session. Helen Mead, from the local music advisory service, visited the school and met two teachers and the school’s senior physiotherapist. We talked about ways we could bring singing into the school day, including how to ‘ritualise’ our day more to help the young people recognise what’s going on around them.

Engaging children

Singing has been a big part of school life for some time. Although our children aren’t able to sing the words of the rhymes or do the physical actions themselves, we all see how much potential there is in using repetitive rhythmic chants and short songs to engage them. Diana, our physiotherapist, incorporates songs into her motor skills sessions with primary-aged learners – sessions where they work on muscle control through a series of supported exercises. Things that most of us take for granted, such as just sitting unsupported, involve enormous effort for some of our learners.

Diana asked for a fresh look at the music she uses, so we wrote some new songs. Then Helen taught them to a class of children she was working with in a local mainstream school. They recorded the songs onto CD, with Helen playing the guitar. The first session in which the CD was played was absolutely magical – our children so love to hear other children sing. And what was also quite a moving and unexpected impact of the work was that the children from the mainstream school asked Helen what the songs were about. They wanted to understand why the songs described basic physical skills like sitting up and opening your hands – the things our learners have to work on that able-bodied children might take for granted. So it turned out to be an awareness-raising exercise too and we hope to organise a visit in the future for the children who sang. 

The personal touch 

Another way we use singing is in ‘name songs’. Nearly all our children have a personal song, which we use to welcome them each day. For example, we might sing to the tune of Heads, shoulders, knees and toes:

‘Let’s say hello to Reece, hello Reece,
Let’s sing hello to Reece, hello Reece,
We’re so glad you’re here, we’ll clap and stamp and cheer,
Let’s sing hello to Reece, hello Reece’. 

The way it works is simple: the staff start to sing, the child enjoys listening to them and then we find out who wants their song next. It’s because of this personal approach that I’ve just given a certificate to a girl who made a quarter-turn on her own. She can sit independently on a chair but tends to sit sideways and keep herself a little removed from the rest of the group. This week, however, on the third day of doing the song, she moved independently to face the group when it was her turn.

Singing has helped us reach out to so many of our children. We have another young lady who finds change very difficult – for example, being transferred out of her chair into the hydrotherapy pool. Her default position is to sit as if leaning on her elbows with her hands over her ears. But when you sing with her, after a little while she’ll hold your hand and begin to engage. In fact, today, when we sang her song, she hummed along with the tune. That means a great deal.

The experience of singing with the children here is quite different from that at other schools. But it works, and it gives me confidence to see how much it means to them.

Take note

Vocal Force is a Sing Up workforce development project aiming to build a sustainable network of leaders in a targeted area. For information, visit the About Us area.