Case History: Special Education
Tuesday 3rd June 2008
Children with learning difficulties from Cedar Special School in Doncaster have created the very first school singing and signing choir in the region, through a project delivered by LMN and Accessible Arts & Media's Hands & Voices Choir.
LMN musicians Debbie Bennett and Liz Keetley, learning disabled trainer Martin Hodgson, and his mentor Mollie Taylor, worked with more than 30 pupils over ten weeks. Children in the newly formed choir developed their singing and signing skills and built up a repertoire of music which varied from rock and roll to a new composition written by the pupils themselves.
The Makaton communication programme was central to the project. Unlike British Sign Language, where every word is signed, Makaton focuses on keywords within the text, enabling anyone to learn the signs quite quickly. Hands & Voices ran a training day for Debbie and Liz, as well as 4 other LMN musicians, on how they can incorporate singing and signing activities into their work with learning disabled groups.
The project drew to a close with a celebratory showcase performance featuring the new school choir and the Hands & Voices Choir (the UK's first singing and signing choir), for an invited audience drawn from Doncaster's special schools and day centres, as well as fellow pupils, friends, family and carers.
As well as being enormously enjoyable for everyone involved, the project contributed to Cedar School's delivery of the Every Child Matters outcomes, particularly to "Enjoy and Achieve through learning".
Creating the choir:
- provided activities which were tailored to participants' specific needs and abilities
- offered opportunities to acquire new skills and rise to new challenges in a supportive environment
- brought the whole school together in a creative way, raising staff and pupil morale and supporting the sense of community within school
- helped to alleviate pupils' feelings of isolation or difference by enabling them to participate in a group activity on a range of levels, and to communicate in non-verbal ways with their peers
A resource pack is now being developed which will contain sign sheets, a DVD of the signs, a CD of the songs, and a CD of backing tracks. This pack is designed to enable other special schools around the country develop their own singing and signing choir. These packs are available to schools free of charge.
You would walk up the corridor during the whole week and hear people singing the songs, including the staff! Music Teacher, Cedar School
This project was supported by Mayfield Valley Arts Trust & Youth Music.
