Over the past 20+ years, ABC Creative Music has developed innovative cost-effective Nursery, Primary & ASN/SEN music programmes, delivered on interactive whiteboards and/or resource packs- with highly successful training programmes for non-specialist teachers.
Founded by leading jazz musicians Tom and Phil Bancroft, and developed in classrooms across Scotland, ABC programmes engineer grown-up musical creativity into child-friendly resources- with three important results:
- Clear Creative Outcomes: Smart activity design guarantees clear coherent musical outcomes that excite children and communicate with audiences. As children grow, the music children make develops in sophistication as they do, but is always clear, fun and entertaining.
- A Real Sense of Ownership: Simple activity interfaces leave children with real control of creative decision-making- so they have a strong sense of ownership of the musical outcomes.
- Non-Specialist-Friendly Resources: Simple resource design, with the clever stuff hidden behind the scenes, means non-specialist teachers can effectively lead all our programmes.
Children love discovering ‘I am musical! I am creative!’- driving engagement with music and the development of core musical concepts and skills, and for children who struggle at school, often transforming their relationship with their own learning and with school in general..
On-screen interactives develop creativity with animal noises, actions and percussion sounds. Age-appropriate notation develops in sophistication as children grow, moving for the screen to handout-based group work- with powerful audition formats honing performance skills.
Interest in the psychology of creativity makes teaching and learning safe and fun. By using simple of ideas of form (repetition- “do it again”, contrast- “do something different”, variation- “same but different”) , children learn how to make music in real-time (improvisation) and ahead of time (composition) before applying their creative skills to instruments.
Similar care is taken in the design of CPD training for teachers- addressing head-on the anxiety most classroom teachers feel when teaching music and creativity.
Music Specialists can move between easy-to-use shape notation and the stave, and the Music Leader programme trains staff to use the ABC training website to lead CPD training of non-specialists in their own authorities.
ABC Online delivers everything you need through the interactive whiteboards: downloadable handouts, online assessment, training videos, curricular coding, and cross-curricular topic modules- including material for Christmas, French & Spanish, Scots Language and Burns, Gaelic and Style & Genre. with new powerful modules teaching Literacy and Numeracy Through Music. Online Programmes are available for mainstream Primary classrooms and SEN/ASN settings.
“Children are having so much fun, they don’t realise they are learning!” Kirstie Love, Primary Teacher