Be Safe - South Lanarkshire Council and the RSNO

South Lanarkshire Council and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra joined forces this year to produce a six week programme of music workshops with nursery school children across South Lanarkshire called ‘Be Safe’.

There were four nurseries involved in the project with a maximum of 20 pupils per workshop.  The workshops were funded by Sure Start and the focus of the workshops was around protective behaviours.

Protective behaviours is a strategy being considered by South Lanarkshire Council for roll out across the authority.  It teaches young people, teachers and staff to think about personal safety and what they do if they have a problem, or need somebody to talk to. It is about encouraging young people to trust their instincts: if they don't feel safe they should do something about it.

It is also about making sure every child has a network of people they know they can talk to: eg. teachers, grown ups, family, friends and then emergency services/help lines, etc.  Protective behaviours is about making sure they know how to contact these people.

Each workshop consisted of animateur Karen McIver, puppeteer Chris Duffy, and four musicians from the RSNO. Parents and nursery staff were encouraged to actively participate in all the activities throughout the project.

Before the programme began, there was a twilight session for both parents and teachers who were taking part in the workshops. This lasted for three hours and introduced percussion instruments, puppetry and information relating to protective behaviours.  All musicians and the puppeteer were introduced to the teachers along with the animateur. 

Each musician in the twilight session was allocated an area and teacher with whom they would work with for the duration of the project.  Each teacher and parent made their own puppet and was provided with ideas to use with the children in order to prepare them for the workshops.

Once the programme began, the workshops in each nursery lasted 90 minutes and aimed to focus on two set pieces of music for each nursery performance.  The workshops also enabled the children to create their own music through instruments and voice with an informal sharing session being held where parents and nursery pupils were invited.

The children were also given the opportunity to create their own puppet which would be part of the sharing and song making.

Due to short timescales, it was only possible to arrange localised, informal sharing of the children’s work but this worked out well.  The 'sharing' consisted of the music and puppets the children had created and the musicians, animateur and puppeteer also took part.  All the parents of those involved attended the sharing.

The response from the project was extremely positive.  All those who participated in the project were very pleased with the quality of the workshops and the sharing produced by the professionals, children and nursery staff.  The parents felt very honoured that their child had been part of such an educational and fun experience, producing a wonderful and exciting musical masterpiece.

South Lanarkshire Council Cultural Co-ordinators would like to take this opportunity to thank all staff and pupils from the four nurseries who took part in the programme, and to thank all those at the RSNO for providing them with the opportunity to create such a wonderful experience together.