Sometimes, it pays to pause and think about the memories we’re creating with the children we teach. I’m not the soft-and-fuzzy sort who thinks that schooling should be all about papier maché and improvised role play. Far from it: I’m generally of the view that my job is to teach, and that the best use of children’s time is when I’m teaching them things. But there still has to be a place for memory-making.
When I find myself reminiscing about my school days, what is it I remember? Aside from the who and where of it all, a few things stick out. Many of them are the things that had little to do with the teacher. Like the time my reading group were allowed to take our books to the science lab…and read exactly none of our designated chapter of The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, instead choosing to explore the resource drawers. Or the time we hid in the large boxes that had been delivered to the school library.
There are few others who can share in those stories. But there’s another common thread that allows me to reminisce about my schooldays with my wife who went to primary school 100 miles away and several years later. For surely it hardly matters where or when you went to a primary school, if someone ever says “Dance then, wherever you may be…”, the only possible response is to sing - and sing it must be - “I am the Lord of the Dance, said he”.
And on reflection, I can look back with great memories of hymn practices and musical performances, right from What Shall We Do Today? in first school, to exuberant recitations of Jubilate Deo by Year 7. And not only do I remember the singing practices, it links to the other memories too. The time we sang Three Wheels on My Wagon while waiting for parents to pick us up early when school closed for a winter storm. And nothing brought greater honour than being able to change the song sheets on the overhead projector.
As a teacher, too, I’ve memories of schools that are inextricably linked to the songs we sang. As I prepare to leave my Midlands school to return to the south, I know I’ll take with me the surprise when I first heard Who Put the Colours in the Rainbow? in a Nottinghamshire accent - my “giraffe” sounded all wrong.
When I look back to my NQT year, I remember staring in awe at our pianist hammering out Colours of Day, and the joy of 400 voices in unison. I’ll never forget the school where our hall was too small to fit all 700 pupils - so instead we assembled on the playground in the depths of winter to come together and sing.
It’s the coming together that makes it so important, perhaps. I’ve never been a huge fan of assemblies more generally, but there’s something about singing together that brings a bit of soul into a school. Maybe we could scrap Ofsted and just send someone in to see how the school comes together to sing.
Not every school has the joys of our amazing pianist, nor the oddity of being forced to get together on a freezing playground, but there’s something wonderful about a community coming together in song - it’s the stuff memories are made of. Go on - spend 10 minutes on YouTube looking up old school hymns; you’ll see what I mean.
Michael Tidd is deputy head at Edgewood Primary School in Nottinghamshire
