Start Your Own Singing Playground

Rebecca Ledgard, Education Manager at Ex Cathedra, gives some helpful advice.

I couldn't have dreamt in a million years just how our work for Sing Up would develop. It has been an exciting several months, and we have a dedicated team who bring a wonderful mix of skills and experience from the performance, education, and community music worlds. This, I believe, is our strength.

Next year, Ex Cathedra celebrates its 40th anniversary. We have a choir of young amateur singers, a consort, a baroque orchestra, a concert season, recordings and broadcasts, international touring, research-informed performance, and, of course, our thriving education programme.

Our passion in our education programme is that singing can be for all, while also offering opportunities for young singers to realise their potential. As well as our own youth choirs, we run many singing projects in schools and community settings for all age groups and levels of experience.

ROLE MODELS

As a first-access project, Singing Playgrounds aims to engage and include everyone in a school community so that singing becomes a normal, everyday affair. The project puts children at the heart of school singing activity by enabling a chosen group of 'song leaders' to lead the playground singing games. These children are not chosen because they are the 'singers'. In fact, we actively encourage the teachers to choose children who are the role models, who are a bit more challenging, who are shy, or who just need something extra.

Through proper class singing lessons, we teach all the children in the school a variety of singing games and then we teach the 'song leaders' how to get those games going and how to manage them in the playground. We focus on the play aspect of the games because children love playing together. We only use singing games where the singing actually motivates the game - where it is so integral that without it, the game ceases. We try to offer a broad spectrum of games so that there is something for everyone: circle games, games to laugh with, games to run and catch with, games to be silly in, games with a competitive element, games with a ball, games with a partner, games that are active and games for sitting.

We actively encourage children to change, develop, share and invent games. This adds to their pride in their song-play and supports what is and should be a child-led world of singing games.

Teachers, learning support staff and dinner supervisors come to love the games, because not only do they see children enjoying themselves, but they also see children developing and spending their playground time positively. Teachers are encouraged to use the games in their lessons as gathering activities, brain gym, calming, motivating, refreshing, SATs revision (...oh yes), circle time and even their music time!

It's a joy to experience and hear of many positive outcomes. Recently, teachers at a school in Birmingham, on collecting their classes at the end of lunchtime, were "utterly amazed" at finding a "peaceful playground" with 70 plus children standing in a circle playing an Estonian handclap passing singing game. This is a playground that has had huge challenges in the past. Teachers acting as project co-ordinators in our Singing Playgrounds schools tell us that they feel more confident with singing activities and are developing better vocal technique.

EXPERIENCE THE BUZZ

You don't have to be a singing specialist to get children playing singing games in the playground; it's about inspiring the children to have a go. You do need a repertoire of singing games to get it started, but you don't need many and it's easier to create this repertoire than you may realise. Think back to your own childhood - chances are, there are singing games in the back of your memory. Watch children in the playground; there will probably be some singing play already going on. There is also a wealth of repertoire very easily accessed, from websites to books with CDs - and Sing Up, of course!

Once you have found some singing games, you'll need to share them with the children; and it is about sharing the games with them. Please don't think of it as teaching the children! Equip yourself with the confidence to do this. Learn the song off by heart. It won't help you to have a word sheet as a prop because you'll find you hide behind it. Instead, you want the children to listen to you and, just as you do in any teaching situation, make eye contact.

The games may be for the playground, but don't introduce them in the playground, even if you feel it's a safer, more informal environment. You'll exhaust your voice and keeping a captive audience will be harder than in the classroom, where there are routines and understandings of conduct. Instead, share games with your class as a reward at the end of a day, then set them a group task of getting as many children as possible playing this in the playground on the following day. Tell them you will be there to help them do this and discuss ways in which they can encourage other children to join in. Once you're all out there at playtime, you'll see that just having a large group of children singing and playing a game is infectious to curious children and soon you'll have huge numbers joining in.

MAINTAINING AND CELEBRATING

Following this playtime, announce in a whole school assembly how fantastic it was to see children playing together. Tell them you are creating a school collection of their singing games and set them the task of finding singing games from friends and family. Organise a day of sharing these games and make an audio visual record that you could then play in the school entrance. Before long, with a bit of care and encouragement, as with anything in school, you'll see children and adults enjoying singing. You'll see children who have not responded to singing in a positive way before become involved. You'll see some of the wonderful benefits singing can bring to children, and ones that you could never have imagined!

Try out our mega-medley of 5 playground songs!

About the author

Rebecca Ledgard is Education Manager for Ex Cathedra. Along with Ex Cathedra's Artistic Director Jeffrey Skidmore and Singing Playgrounds Leader Ula Weber, Rebecca runs Singing Playgrounds projects all over the country with a team of Ex Cathedra vocal tutors.