Community Early Years Music Group
An Early Years music group for local children and Belmont pupils to enjoy active music making, movement and activities together. A great opportunity for local mothers, fathers, parents, granparents or carers to come together with the pre-school age children.
Aims
To use Belmont's Theatre facility to provide a venue for Early Years children and their parents to enjoy music making and to form links between the local community and our school.
Critical factors are excellent provision and a safe environment for young children. The beneficiaries are local parents, most of whom do not and never will send their child to our school. The Belmont Early Years children receive Music education irrespective of this group - this is entirely a means to make it possible to realise this opportunity for the local community.
Background
The group was set up many many years ago (over a decade) by a local resident who was a Belmont parent and recognised the need for a music education group for pre-schoolers in the village. The founder of the project then retired and handed it over to another parent of children who attend the local state schools. She was keen to keep this facility for the local mothers of small children both those who are at Belmont and the majority who are not.
Resources
The project uses the Belmont School Theatre, resources and catering. Belmont provides the venue and the catering and we design our school timetable every year to ensure that the group can continue to meet on the same mornings so that local residents know when and where it is happening. The teacher is a member of the local community although our Early Years staff are also timetabled to attend.
The group meets two mornings per week on Mondays and Wednesdays and there are two sessions on each day. Belmont Early Years children only attend for one session whereas local members of the community can book as many sessions as they wish.
Impact
Mothers can often feel lonely in a village setting and it is clear from the success of the group and the length of time the project has been running that it meets a community need.
We do not carry out formal impact assessment. All feedback however is noted and used as an indication of the success or otherwise of the project.
There are no anticipated outcomes except that we hope that mothers will enjoy bringing their children to the group. Many are also members of the local village playgroup.
Pupil Involvement
The Belmont Early Years pupils attend one session during the week whilst local community children can attend as many sessions as they wish.
The pupils are under school age - from birth. Both boys and girls can attend with mothers, fathers, grandparents or carers.
Frequency
This activity has been ongoing for over a decade. It happens on Monday and Wednesday mornings. We anticipate that it will continue into the future and have no plans to end the project.