Bless me reader, for I have sinned - it is eight weeks since my last post! To be honest, anything I would usually write at this time of year is mostly related to my issues dealing with shorter days, how much I dislike winter, in spite of my love of cosiness and candles, and how hibernation seems really appealing!
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| Loving candles... |
But I’m not going to write about that!
The dust has now settled after the festive season, and my house is now back to ‘normal’, with the welcome addition of some new nice things, and I have had time to reflect on the past few weeks. We were lucky enough to have a lovely Christmas - visits from family, good food and thoughtful gifts - and lots of happy memories created.
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| Glorious plant stand! |
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| Hare and tea light lanterns! |
It struck me that two of the things I enjoyed the most were a visit to my granddaughter’s ballet class and seeing my great niece, perform in professional panto at a local theatre (oh yes she did!) It was completely joyous to watch both these beautiful girls, aged 6 and 8, dance and act.
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| She's behind you! |
How lucky they are to have parents that value the performing arts, and have the wherewithal to allow them to do it. It is no coincidence that both their mums danced when they were younger.
My children did not dance, but they did both learn instruments and this gave them a richness in their lives that they wouldn’t otherwise have had. Previous Christmases have seen me proudly watching my son perform the Snowman on his violin, and quietly snivelling as my daughter played ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ to me on the piano. Despite my changing finances, following my divorce, I was determined that, whatever happened, I would continue to fund my children’s music lessons, and, to this day, they both have a love of music and playing their instruments.
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| Still playing their instruments, many many years after this!! |
And then I started to wonder about all those children whose parents didn’t dance, didn’t have the benefit of private music lessons, but who would gain so much from the discipline, the concentration, the teamwork that comes from being involved in performing? The answer used to be, of course, that all children would have these opportunities when they went to school. But in these straitened times you don’t have to google for too long to find examples of schools cutting back on their performing arts provision - not only can they not afford to employ specialist staff, they also feel that they can no longer afford the curriculum time. There is so much pressure on schools to deliver incremental improvements in maths and english that they are almost scared to do anything else. Before I retired I worked in a class delivering specialist autism provision. I can say now (safe from Ofsted’s reach) that if the curriculum didn’t fit, we pretty much ignored it.
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| A vehicle for communication... |
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| Watching her friends |
There’s a huge amount of maths in music, and watching my granddaughter hanging onto the words of her dance teacher and watching the other dancers made me realise how hard she was concentrating. I found a fascinating article about how a school in Bradford has improved its SATs results by giving its pupils six (yes, six) hours of music a week
It actually scares me that some of our children, especially those living in socially deprived areas, could grow up experiencing an ever narrowing curriculum and miss out on experiences that could not only support them academically, but also help them to be more rounded individuals as they go through life.
Just saying…
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