This set of principles serves to offer a baseline for quality vocal leadership. It’s a start at articulating the fundamental principles of leadership which underpin good-quality, healthy singing. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the points below. We want you to test out these principles in any way you feel appropriate, and to help us create the context for the future of healthy, happy, high-quality singing in primary-age settings.
Vocal leadership with primary-aged children is made up of a number of distinct elements. Through Sing Up, we’ve seen that good vocal leadership in any situation is most effective when it is:
- Musical: The leader values and uses a wide range of musical genres and reference points; encourages diverse styles and approaches to music-making; is confident in giving appropriate musical feedback.
- Positive: The leader affirms and values everyone’s participation in singing, praises effort, celebrates achievement and shares enthusiasm and joy.
- Well-informed: The leader is curious and eager to learn; understands the principles that underpin healthy, musical singing; seeks out appropriate, inspiring repertoire; knows where to get further support and training.
- Clear: The leader communicates all information and requests for action – e.g. musical cues, tasks, instructions – efficiently; through words, gestures, body language, written materials and any other means that will be useful.
- Inclusive: The leader strives to take account of the different needs, circumstances, capacities and interests of all group members so that everyone is able to participate fully and do their best; actively seeking opinions, suggestions, feedback and ideas from everyone.
- Encouraging: The leader has high regard for group members; respects everyone’s potential to achieve their best; sets appropriately challenging musical goals for group members and for own professional development; models and encourages self awareness and reflective practice.
- Creative: The leader encourages experimentation and invention; uses a range of different approaches and ideas; actively looks for ways to connect singing across the whole curriculum and with community life.
These descriptors are intended to help you focus and develop your vocal leadership, by offering clear statements to work with. Of course, you’ll concentrate on some of these qualities more than others in any given singing session, and the needs and goals of the group you are working with will influence your approach. The key to success is your own eagerness to learn. Developing new skills and trying out fresh approaches will ensure that your vocal leadership is continuously improving – and you’ll hear the effect of that in all the singing and vocal work that you lead.
Do you agree with the set of principles above? Are there any points that you think we’ve missed? If you’d like to comment on this blog entry, please let us know your thoughts!
I think this set of principles is excellent and not too wordy! Wouldn’t it be great if colleagues could focus on one heading each month as a form of self review and choose just one aspect to try to improve?
As our aspiration is for schools to have at least two colleagues confident about leading singing, they could support one another. This would also help them to choose which of the many excellent CPD opportunities on which to focus.
Just one thought that I think is implicit but perhaps could be explicit: quality and high expectations as a way of motivating young people (and adults) to wish to continue singing. “A good vocal leader will have high expectations and know how to help these to be achieved and exceeded through being musical; encouraging; creative; positive; inclusive; well-informed and clear.”
What do colleagues think?
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I think that “well informed” doesn’t convey the whole picture. You can be well informed, ie know things “in your head” without necessarily applying them when singing/leading. Singing is cathartic, and on some levels operates “below” intellectual knowledge. When leading workshops I find that the group may be taking in maybe a quarter of what I am saying, but they are singing by subconciously following my lead in terms of breathing and release of breath. So, rather than “well informed”, which is obviously important, I think there needs to be something about application of this knowledge through practical singing. This doesn’t mean that every vocal leader needs to be a performing level singer – as this can alienate less confident group members – but a level of relaxed vocal confidence and good singing examples is important. It’s quite difficult to put that into a snappy bullet point, but there are times when good singing goes to display the inadequacies of written language.
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I think the principles as they stand are all valid ones. I understand that they may not be in any hierarchical order but it is difficult to avoid that when they are written. I think it is unfortunate that ‘musical’ comes last on the list. For me this is the most important. I also think there should be some acknowledgement of an understanding of children’s musical and vocal development. Again, this may be implicit, as Dick Hallam suggests about his point but I think it should be more explicit.
These comments aside, my main concern is that I don’t think this is where we should be starting if we want to encourage and support class teachers to understand what quality is and how to improve their own children’s singing. I think that you have started at the wrong end of the spectrum. I believe and know to be true, that class teachers need and welcome some guiding principles that are based on common sense structures. I think it is quite possible to provide clasroom teachers with these generic guidelines that encompass and take account of all the different genres and styles. This will not constrict diversity but support it. If we are to hope for at least 2 colleagues in each school to be confident to lead (and improve) their school’s singing then this is where we need to begin.
I am sure that all school based colleagues would welcome a pull out in the next bulletin which provides these guidelines.
It would be good to hear from some of them here.
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Colin Reed Reply:
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:37 AM
Leonora
I’m interested in the type of generic guidelines that you say that teachers welcome. Are these actual healthy singing tips to feel confident in their own singing, or guidelines to be more effective as a leader? We have several facilitators who deliver twilight training sessions to primary school teachers, and it would be good to put together a “core” training session for them, as well as the work they do on an introduction to the website and the overall Sing Up programme. Of course we welcome the individuality and diversity that having a range of trainers gives, but having a similar core set of teaching guidelines could always be good to work from.
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Leonora Davies Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 5:15 PM
Colin
It would be great to discuss this and see if we can come up with some core principles. I think that ‘healthy singing tips’ are now being address by most workshop leaders as part of the warm up activities.
So I’m more concerned with guidelines for more effective leadership for those teachers who are trying to encourage other colleagues and get singing embedded in their schools. I have prepared some paper work on this already with some simple guidelines about planning and then leading a staff workshop/CPD session for other colleagues.
I would love to discuss this further so look forward to hearing from you.
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Colin Reed Reply:
March 16th, 2010 at 2:53 PM
Leonora
I would be particularly interested how you address healthy pitch for young singing when training teachers. The vast majority of teachers I come across are pitching songs far too low for their classes. I have to say that one of the shortfalls of the Song Bank in my opinion is that there are too many songs set too low for the ages that may be singing them. I may be at an advantage when I lead classes myself in that I am a male tenor, and so pitch an octave below what should be a healthy range for primary children. The majority of class teachers I come across are female, and typically pitching songs where they are comfortable for themselves and not the class – typically anything from a 3rd to a 5th lower than is healthy. I know in CPD sessions with mainly female teachers it is really difficult to get them used to pitching songs high enough – something I know how to address in one-on-one singing lessons, but is harder to get across in large groups.
Best regagrds
Colin
What teacher would not want to be positive,well informed, clear,inclusive, encouraging and creative? These principles can be used to develop high quality teaching in any subject…. just change “Musical”, to, “Mathematical”,”Geographical” etc.
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I applaud the Principles and wonder whether I could set up/join a working party to adapt these for the Early Years. I am particularly interested in the musical development of very young children.
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Nice blog!! keep up the nice style, it’s nice to see writer’s like you these days
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