Week 14 Commencing 16th September 2013

Working with Nina Smith again this week has been great, I can see that (young person c) has really enjoyed what these sessions have entailed and over the past couple of weeks it has really helped to improve his performance by a great measure.

However, the most common issue I have found during these sessions at the moment is that there are some young people that have the confidence to perform and work on new material and there other young people that either have been playing an instrument for a short time or do not play an instrument at all. There involvement in the sessions is just as important as the young people that are confident at performing. Therefore, I think there needs to be a slight change which will be very beneficial for each young person that attends these sessions.

To move these sessions forward so that the young people may have a greater benefit I think that more structured sessions will open up a variety of opportunities:

Having more structured session will be a great benefit for the young people as this will allow them to create aims that can be achieved in or out of sessions on a group or individual basis.

Working on group performance will also help to improve the key attributes of teamwork and in addition will aid individual performance.

Week 13 Commencing 9th September 2013

Open mic night – from the outcome of the previous two events, delegation of duties was required to ensure this next night would run smooth and be successful. During this week a meeting was held to discuss and delegate each task that needed to be completed. I now feel more confident in going into the next open mic night as each trainee has been were given a role in line with their strengths and capabilities.

  

Working with Nina Smith for a two hour session enabled us to gain the full attention of the students, once directed they were very enthusiastic in participating in the session. Having the involvement of a professional artist gave a real boost to the students there as they saw actual benefits to doing what they were doing.

This session has taught me that when teaching sessions there is the need at times to introduce artists that are already established within the music industry to enable the students to see that each session of learning is necessary to attain their success and career. Each student in the session was fully involved and needed little encouragement even when playing the simplest of instrument.

Weeks 11 & 12 Commencing 26th August & 2nd September 2013

Looking back to the first training session with Phill Mullen it was very successful.   I was therefore looking forward to this next session.

The experience and knowledge I gained with regard to teaching and applying various methods and techniques to ensure each session is interesting for the students, I count as invaluable.  However, I realised that I need to ensure that during each session there is adequate time to answer all questions as this will ensure that the student(s) does not feel that they are being ignored or what they have to say is not important. Also this will help me to feel satisfied that I have delivered a good session.

I have gained great satisfaction in being trained to deliver arts awards in bronze and silver level, this has now equipped me to guide and assess students studying for this award which will give them a sense of achievement and a step towards pursuing their ambitions.

This was the second open mic night which was yet again a great success but slightly let down the organisation of the event. To ensure this does not happen again we need to delegate roles for each trainee and check prior to the event that everything is in place.