Mind the gap

Our Singing Ambassador, Howard Goodall, offers some advice to help keep kids singing past Year 6 

Through Sing Up, we have seen many times the dramatic improvements that becoming a singing school can bring to children and staff within a primary school, and we’re toppling myths along the way.

It was once considered acceptable to tell a child that he or she couldn’t sing, or to make them mime, or to humiliate them by making fun of their voices. It has long been held by some that boys won’t or don’t sing, that mixed faith schools ‘can’t’ give singing assemblies, that there’s no point in having songs for deaf children, that singing gets in the way of ‘proper’ learning like literacy and numeracy, that traditional British folk songs, once firmly part of the cultural landscape, are dying out among the young, and so on. Sing Up, I am very proud to say, has played a huge part in confronting and slaying these myths.

Most of the readers of this magazine, thanks in part also to Sing Up, will have seen entire schools of children aged 5-11 singing with glee and enthusiasm, but what happens to that singing habit when the Year 6-ers move on to secondary school?

TACKLING TRANSITION

The issue of transition has occupied much thought and has been the subject of some trail-blazing projects, especially those led by secondary schools with music as a specialism. British schools such as Formby High School, Twyford C of E High School and Guildford County School are pioneering techniques and innovations in this area.

But if we are being honest about the overall picture, secondary schools’ provision of group singing opportunities is a pale shadow of that increasingly offered by primary schools. For many children the leap from Year 6 to 7 is one in which their voices – literally – go silent. We can’t allow this to happen and there are various ways we can help give them a chance to carry their singing on into secondary school.

First, it is important that primary school children, especially the older ones, see adults singing. A school assembly where everyone sings should mean everyone, including teachers, classroom assistants and any other grown-ups. If an 11-year-old boy sees that the grown men in the room don’t join in with the singing, they will shrink from it themselves as they begin their journey into adulthood. They’ll see it as something that only girls or younger children do, and shy away from it.

Secondly, Year 6 pupils need to see that older teenagers sing. This sounds daunting but it isn’t impossible. Some secondary schools already engage in joint singing projects with their feeder primary schools.

Take their lead and try taking the Year 6 children to see the annual musical in the local high school or invite the choir of a local high school to sing at an assembly.

Another way of continuing to engage interest is to subtly transform the type of songs the children sing in Year 6 as their tastes mature. Their curriculum and their interests are changing, so it’s only right that their songs should, too.

SONG SELECTION

We can help by providing songs in the Song Bank that are tailored to the 11-13 age group. Finding them a counter-melody or slightly more sophisticated ‘rhythm section’ vocal line to enhance the melody the other children are singing is fun for the Year 6-ers and gives them a musical responsibility befitting their age.

We can, and should, help to improve the provision of singing at secondary level; a task that I am already beginning to grapple with. But even now, I hope we can inspire the music departments of senior schools by example. More and more primary school pupils are expecting to sing as part of their normal school day and have teachers who are increasingly confident at leading singing. The very thing that new Year 7 pupils fear most in their new environment – loneliness and isolation – can be helped enormously by their being able to lose themselves in a large group and find their voice, to find safety in numbers and reassurance in doing something familiar in an unfamiliar world.

We all believe that singing crosses frontiers – here’s a perfect opportunity to prove it.

Take note

Check out 'New boy born', a holiday song that could work well as a transition project with KS3. Give it a go and let us know what you think. We'd also love to hear your ideas for tackling transition - Just contact us .

Song Bank

There's plenty of material in the Song Bank suitable for KS2/KS3 and more is coming! Remember you can search songs by useful filters including key stage, subject and song style.

Here are some suitable transition songs you may want to try:

• Ain’t no mountain high enough
• Ame sau vala tara bal
• Bad guys
• Be cool
• By and by
• Consider yourself
• Foundscapes and soundscapes
• Hey, Escher!
• Heiveinu shalom aleichem
• Hey, Mr Miller
• I can see clearly now
• The inch worm
• Information highway
• I turn on the tap / I walk to the stream
• I wanna be like you
• I wanna sing scat
• Just one person
• Life is a wonderful thing
• Life is what you make it
• Oh, happy day
• OK
• Siyahamba
• Spread a little happiness
• Sumer is icumen in
• This little light of mine
• Those magnificent men in their flying machines
• Under the sea
• We’re all in this together
• We all shine for each other