Music and Wellbeing in Early Childhood
Participants: Amy Mallett, Charlotte Arculus, Christina MacRae, Dina East, Dominic Wyse, Graham Welch, Jessica Pitt, Julia Partington, Julian Knight, Katherine Zeserson, Lil Newton, Margaret Barrett, Phillipa Reive
Series: Creative Thinktanks
Ideas explored: music for health and wellbeing
Our third Creative Thinktank examined how music impacts development in the early stages of our lives.
Discussions
Ideas explored embraced a wide range of wellbeings, including physical, psychological, emotional, social, educational and musical. Discussions indicated that:
- engaging successfully in music pre-school is likely to bring additional developmental benefits
- this is especially likely to be the case where the adults involved (parents, carers, teachers, assistants) are enabled to develop insightful values and beliefs about such benefits. This creates a virtuous circle to enable and foster both musical and wider development.
Proposal 1: A Research Project
To enrich young children’s vocabulary through music and sound.
Significance:
To address the speech, language and communication needs deficit which remains unchanged since 2008. This will be a 4-pronged approach involving musicians, children, parents and early years practitioners.
Summary:
A two-year RCT/ethnographic study examining the impact of music-based interventions on the language development of early years children.
Three groups would be compared:
- Control (no interventions)
- With interventions by music leader and music-trained EY practitioner
- With interventions by music leader, music-trained EY practitioner, and music-trained parents
Partners: Speech and language therapists, NHS, HHCP (e.g. CF/MA), arts partners
Outcomes:
- Children’s vocabulary improved
- Empowered parents
- Early Years practitioners confident to deliver
- Music leaders – increased pedagogical understanding
- Critical thinking & creativity levels increased for all stakeholders
Proposal 2: A Physical Space
To establish a physical space in Suffolk where early years pedagogy encounters experimental, provocative & exquisite arts practice.
Significance:
An interdisciplinary, cross sector, early years arts centre, funded and supported by educational, artistic, health, social care, community, charities, and industry. It would increase cultural capital and social mobility, and meet the wellbeing agenda for children, their families and the early years workforce.
Summary:
A purpose-built arts centre in the heart of the community (with satellite venues) designed to facilitate the engagement of early years children with all areas of the arts. To include a permanent EY setting, a performance space, training space, resident artists, researchers and EY practitioners.
Partners:
HE institutions, NHS, researchers, artists, arts organisations (e.g. ACE, Snape), EY practitioners and settings, parents, children, local industry, trusts (e.g. Wellcome), local authorities and governance, celebrities and patrons.
Outcomes:
- A centre that can be used by international partners as a model for inclusive, cross sector practice
- Ground-breaking new (smudged) research and innovative artistic work
- EY practitioners who are confident in embedding the arts in their practice
- The arts to be viewed as more accessible and valuable by the EY sector
Related reading
http://uq.edu.au/research/impact/stories/thank-you-for-the-music/
https://music.uq.edu.au/profile/723/margaret-barrett
https://www.magic-adventure.co.uk/
https://www.sound-connections.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Music-in-the-Early-Years-Who-What-Why.pdf
https://www.early-education.org.uk/sites/default/files/Musical%20Development%20Matters%20ONLINE.pdf
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/parents-react-to-closure-of-speech-and-language-hubs-1-5999189?sfns=mo
Wyse, D. (2017). How Writing Works: From the Invention of the Alphabet to the Rise of Social Media. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Recent blog based on research on curriculum internationally: https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/what-next-for-curriculum
Wyse, D., Jones, R. Bradford, H. & Wolpert, M. A. (2018). Teaching English, language and literacy (Fourth Edition). London: Routledge.
Wyse, D. & Torgerson, C. (2017). Experimental trials and ‘what works?’ in education: The case of grammar for writing. British Educational Research Journal. Vol. 43(6), p, 1019-1047. DOI: 10.1002/berj.3315 (30).
Co-created by Professor Margaret Barrett, Professor Graham Welch, and Katherine Zeserson, the event brought together researchers, practitioners, advocates, policy-makers and education professionals to consider the following: