Nursery music group
2024
This year, I ran a nursery music group for seven children with a range of additional learning needs and Autism. This was my first experience of working in a primary special school and the first time I had worked with nursery-aged children. The opportunity enabled me to develop my skills as a Music Therapy Assistant, particularly listening and observing, communicating and collaborating with teaching staff, understanding the children’s needs, creating timetables and visuals to aid the children’s understanding of the sessions, and using sensory activities to support sensory regulation. By the end of the second term, I felt much more confident with using music in a therapeutic way.
The group ran for two terms, with the aim of developing the children’s attention, engagement, turn-taking, sharing and communication skills. Two of the children in the group presented with particularly significant sensory needs which could at times impact on them attending the group.
The children took part in ten sessions across the two terms, led by myself and supported by the class teacher and teaching assistants. The sessions were structured with an opening song (the ‘hello song’), guitar strumming backed by my sung improvisations to encourage the children to hum or sung, nursery rhymes, bubble blowing and a closing song (the ‘goodbye’ song) to signal the end of the session. The children were encouraged to sing along with all the songs or play in the circle while we sang.
The nursery rhyme section of the sessions was very interactive and creative. The children took turns to choose an animal they wanted included in each verse of ‘Old MacDonald’. They did this by pressing the corresponding picture on the iPad. When the child pressed the button, the name of the animal was ‘spoken’. The child would then take or be handed a soft toy corresponding to their animal choice. This encouraged the beginnings of choice-making and matching pictures to objects.
Another very interactive part of the session was ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’, during which the song was sung while the group held and waved a rainbow-coloured parachute and threw a soft toy crocodile into the centre at the relevant point in the song. This encouraged the children to work together to wave the parachute and wait for their turn to throw the crocodile.
Towards the end of the series of sessions, and as the children’s confidence grew, additional activities were introduced to the group. The children were now encouraged to choose, as a group, which songs and activities they wanted included in their session. The new activities included playing with swanny whistles to develop blowing skills and ‘Jelly On A Plate’ which involved singing a song and taking part in sensory play with real jelly! The children also had opportunities to play with the guitar and ukulele.
During the first term, the children were finding their feet with the sessions and needed lots of encouragement to participate and keep their attention. Some of the children interacted with the guitar but were not yet aware of how to strum with light pressure. Some of the children would walk away from the music circle to pursue distractions or other activities.
One of the children often asked for more turns and found it difficult to wait and share. To encourage her enthusiasm whilst developing her sharing and turn-taking skills, I gave her some ‘leading’ roles within the activities, including blowing bubbles for the other children instead of me leading this. This worked really well and, in time and with the encouragement of the teaching assistants, she became more comfortable with her turns ending.
By the end of the ten-session series, there were marked improvements in the children’s attention, with all children staying until the end of the sessions and engaging with the instruments. Four of the children had learnt some of the words to the songs and were singing along. At least three of the children were now able to anticipate which activities would be coming next in the session and two children would ask for their favourite activity or sing their favourite nursery rhyme to influence the direction of the session. The two children who had sensory needs were now accessing more of the group activities and both stayed all the way through the final session.
Rebecca Gleave, Music Therapy Assistant, Ealing Music Therapy