Our Music & Literacy project Moving on with Music continues this week at Redlands School in Tower Hamlets. Here's Lucy's blog from the first couple of days:
Day 1 and 2 Redlands School, E1
Mercifully, summer seems to be done with, the rain has set in and we have all cooled down after last week’s meltingly hot temperatures. We are met and shown round the school by Regena, who already has the video camera in her hand ready to film. The desks are cleared back and the fun can begin, but what takes us all by surprise is the reticence of the children to join in. After building a strong rapport with the Stewart Headlam children we expect to carry on from where we left off last week, but of course this is a new class, we are strangers to them, so we must begin again.
The staff are wonderfully supportive, and despite illness and absenses in their ranks all the ideas discussed in the planning meetings have been passed on and acted upon, so we feel we are jumping onto a moving bus.
The afternoon class is different again, lively and full on and this feels like a group that will be throwing bags of ideas at us by tomorrow. Once again, trust and a willingness to work together has to be built before the ideas can really begin to grow.
By day 2 both classes have learnt the ‘Movin On’ song very quickly and are coming up with some beautiful words and images to use for a soundscape with instruments. The short phrases needed for the riff produce some hilarious results, teaching us a lot about school workings. School dinners here don’t seem to provoke the same reaction of horror they did at Stewart Headlam! Are they better or are these children made of sterner stuff?
A day off tomorrow to visit London zoo, and we will all reconvene on Thursday, which seems uncomfortably close to the performance day, Friday.
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