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Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon. National Curriculum, KS1/KS2
Music accompanies some of the deepest aspects of human experience. From a first dance at a wedding to tears cried over a song about heartbreak, through to the collective feeling of community at a festival or a lullaby sung over a newborn, melodies frequently reach beyond what words alone can do.
The national curriculum recognises this. Music is a ‘universal language’ - and learning to speak it helps articulate feelings that go beyond words. It’s easy to assume that this experience is something that comes later in life as we reach important milestones, but the way music impacts and reflects our emotional wellbeing starts young.
In this article, we’ll explore how safeguarding a musical education within the school week has a myriad of benefits in improving learner wellbeing. We’ll look closely at how music supports communication and self expression, emotional regulation, and acts as a fantastic creative outlet in the primary school.
In a different article, we look at how music supports the development of communication and language as part of the wider English curriculum.
Listening carefully and analysing what you can hear plays a key role in early reading, and this work begins in the music curriculum in the EYFS and Key Stage 1. We think the way music develops communication, though, extends beyond traditional speaking and listening skills alone. Exploring a new medium through which to express yourself can be a key part of helping children explore their feelings, needs and wants.
Working out the best way to communicate a mood or feeling through selecting the right instrument, the right tempo and the right dynamics all contribute to the important skill set of adapting communication methods to the right context - all while building up the skills needed to effectively share what’s going on in your head. If you can begin to pick out the right music to match a mood, you might also find it easier to pick out the words that express a feeling or a need you have.
This is particularly important for children who are non-verbal, struggle with their speech, or are neurodiverse - the more outlets a child has for self expression, the better they are able to feel seen and heard, especially when words are hard to find.
Equally, listening to and exploring how a piece of music makes you feel is an important way to practise self-understanding. Encouraging reflection, even with simple questioning, offers children a chance to step back and explore why they like, or don’t like something. Sometimes exploring something abstract, like instrumental music, unlocks thinking which might otherwise be out of reach
Music is transcendent and transformative. Sound and song can help the most stressed and anxious adults feel calmer, and familiar tunes can stir powerful emotion.
Why not, then, offer this incredible tool to learners? Whether it’s soothing music played in the background during focused reading time, or a specific time in the day where children sit, relax and take in calming sounds, music has power to support emotional regulation.
The same can be said for getting active with music. Banging a drum, crashing cymbals and listening to loud, powerful music can provide an outlet for pent up energy or stress. Exploring the regularity of a repeated note, singing to a shared song or chanting a familiar rhyme can all provide the regularity and structure needed to support the most fractious learners. For many, the art of musical expression is so far from other forms of learning that it provides genuine mental escape from stressful situations and anxious minds.
Music matters. It builds up and strengthens the rest of the national curriculum, and does the same with the wellbeing of learners. It is an incredible tool that both enhances and raises up, and is not to be underestimated.
While the busyness of the school day and the fraught timetables of school staff make putting music at the heart of education a real challenge, we believe we’ve found a way in The Ear Academy.
In another article in this series we explore how our bank of lesson plans, teaching tools and teacher CPD can help you and your school navigate delivering this incredible aspect of learning while upskilling staff, minimising stress and maximising joy.
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