It was a great experience to work with the pupils of Windhill Mexborough just before Christmas. Fantastic engagement and a warm welcome from the staff made it a rewarding day for all.
We were blessed to be joined by professional photographer Gavin Joynt. In recent sessions I have asked parents to help me out with taking some pictures and to be fair they haven’t done a bad job, but in my experience getting a professional in can really make a difference. Rather than go on about how much of a nice bloke he was and how he anticipated the shots without getting in the way, I’ll just show a few of his pics to give you an idea.
We were Invited to work with Astrea Academies after meeting Fran Lightfoot at a Community Wealth Builder networking event.
We identified a need to engage with pupils who needed further support. Fran linked us up with Head Jonathan Moody and we decided to focus on pupils with Additional Needs and Specific Learning Difficulties.
Great enthusiasm, whole heartedly connecting with the technology yesterday. We worked on composing, choosing appropriate sounds and learning how to chop beats while keeping good time.
Thanks to Isla Foundation for not only funding, but also for having the patience to stay with us through the difficult times we have faced. The credit also goes to the Barrier Buster fund, for agreeing a match fund to support young people in the most challenging situations. This will give a boost to their confidence, resilience and development.
Atlas is close to Doncaster’s famous St James Street Tower Blocks.
While studying for my degree a good friend lived on the very top floor of the block next door to this one, It’s a magnificent view over the Plant Works and out towards Cusworth Hall.
Big thanks to the young people, the Parents for returning the consent forms, Grace and Jonathan for inviting us and Neil the caretaker for supporting.
We are always looking for organisations and affiliations to further promote positive outcomes for young people. We met Heather Coulthard through an EXPECT Youth members meeting and she kindly asked us to support.
The CU work with partner organisations to collate different activities that young people take part in outside of school time. They receive a stamp from us on their passport and when they reach a certain number of hours, their experience is celebrated with others who have achieved the same. This gives an opportunity for young people to share their experiences and build confidence through a variety of different activities.
We are proud to add to our list of affiliated organisations such as Higher Rhythm Recording Studios, who offer opportunities for progression, EXPECT Youth and UK Youth who supported us in achieving our quality mark.
Yes….. All we ask is that you fill in a short survey, or video interview, such as the one here….. 90minutemusic.co.uk /2022/01/21/active-fusion-winter-camps/
Just a quick word from some of the young people who we have been working with in December
Big thanks to the children at West Road for sharing their positive views
Once again thanks to Lindsy and all the wonderful staff at Active Fusion for their support, also the staff and pupils at Kirk Sandall, Windhill, and West Road for their commitment in supporting not only a boost to the education of their children, but much needed support for local families who have been affected by the pandemic.
Morethaned are an Alternative Provision who provide an attachment and trauma aware provision for young people who have become disengaged with mainstream education.
Their focus is on improving mental health and building resilience through strong relationships and learning essential skills.
After speaking with a senior member of staff, we decided that the focus would be on engagement and supporting essential skills. Over the course of the week we worked in small groups and sometimes one on one.
The Ableton Push Controller is a tactile instrument for creating music
We worked on sound design and creating our own instruments using Ableton Live. The engagement was immediate, and the levels of concentration shown by the young people were incredible. We incorporated elements of English as pupils wrote down Rap lyrics to go with the Hip Hop style music we created.
We discussed with some of the students the opportunity of producing a track, after discussing which musical genres they listened to, such as Donk, Grime and mainstream Pop. The idea we had was to eventually release a track on to one of the digital music platforms like Soundcloud or collaborating with a local artist to do so. The aiming high element of essential skills can be a difficult one to impart on to disengaged young people, but they have an awareness of the commercial elements of music, so it is a good motivator.
It was great to see the young people benefiting from our unique approach, they were respectful, hard-working, intelligent, and although I could see how they didn’t fit well with mainstream education, they have a lot to offer and I wish them well in the future.
The feedback from staff was that that these students don’t tend to engage quickly in new activities, however 90 Minute Music received 100% engagement from the students who were invited to take part.
It is becoming a familiar story to us at 90 Minute Music, but this positive feedback is always good to hear. We were especially grateful to the staff, who were always on hand to offer support, and thanks to Karen for giving us the opportunity to play our part in supporting a positive future for these young people and their families.
A wonderful session last night incorporating a couple of new faces. It was great to have Amanda from Doncaster College Health and Social care in attendance to support our new volunteer Harvey.
We met with Amanda after being introduced through EXPECT Youth. Amanda was interested in working with us after discussing how 90 Minute Music can help people with Health and Development. We interviewed Harvey who has ambitions to become a Paramedic in the future. He proved himself to be engaging and diligent in his work and he will be joining us in the upcoming weeks delivery at Highfields.
It was positive to have engaged with our first volunteer from the viewpoint of delivery. I discussed with Harvey how delivering 90 Minute Music can be fast-paced and utilising digital technology throughout. He recognised that there will be an opportunity to learn transferable skills that will help him when he qualifies as a Paramedic.
The young people who joined us are a credit to their families, they applied themselves to every task and took on new challenges to build on what they had achieved the week before. When I asked the group what they had remembered from the previous week? they mumbled that they couldn’t remember but when I prompted them with the music there was an outpouring of detailed elements of what they had learnt the previous week which is a more common outcome.
Bobby from EXPECT Youth visited the session and we welcomed him to take part which he did with no hesitation. We briefly discussed Snowball the dancing Cockatoo and the science behind 90 Minute Music and how it is formulated to support young people with their development. It was fantastic to hear from him that he felt 90 Minute Music was a unique experience and he left with a greater understanding of the benefits.
Big Thanks to Liz again for the support, we will be back at Highfields Boxing Club for the next 4 weeks, it is a FREE to attend session so come and join us at 3.45pm on Wednesday afternoon.
A Wholehearted thank you to everyone who attended this evening not least Liz, who gave her time and energy to support the session. We had a full on engagement, and it was pleasing that word got out to young people in surrounding villages who made a real effort to attend. I didn’t expect our first session to delve into how music can help boxers in their future sporting endeavours, but we did touch on how the science behind both are sometimes aligned.
We had young people enjoying their first experience of acoustic drums and it was good to see people freely playing. We had a cool jam and also tried our hand at rapping as a group, which everyone showed the courage to do.
After we briefly talked about the possibilities of using the technology, we discussed as a group the potential for what we could do in the coming weeks, it is important to let these sessions be youth led and then structured to give them the most benefit in a relatively small time frame. We agreed on the direction we wanted to take, and after learning the fundamentals today, we have real scope for achieving something incredible. For those that missed the first one don’t worry, we will be here for the next five weeks every Wednesday from 3.45pm. 4/3/20
Thanks to all the people on social media who helped spread the word that this session would be Fun Free and Fantastic (you were right), also big thanks and respect to EXPECT Youth for not only supporting us in funding these sessions, but also for reaching out to our local communities in Doncaster, where provision is needed most.
After witnessing some real courage and revealing some genuine talent last week, I was looking forward to getting back to the academy this week. It was to be our last session before the Christmas break.
We began by experimenting with some percussion instruments, it is important to warm up your bongo’s and ensure you are comfortable, the key to playing any instrument.
We decided we would attempt to create a song in an hour, we had to collectively make quick decisions to make this happen. We took inspiration from a poster on the wall of a Volcano.
We began by going through some drum loop samples and agreed that a driving beat would be most appropriate to represent the natural power of the Volcano, we quickly recorded some beat-boxing expertly performed by one of the group. Next we split up into two groups, one of us formulating a song, while the others perfected the beat.
We had some free flowing ideas coming from the limitations we were working in, a microcosm of artistic creation. We ended up adding some Synth sounds to create a Bassline, and other sounds which we had to agree on as a group to appropriately compliment our song.
The group worked well together, we achieved our objective and it was good to see cohesion between pupils who wouldn’t have chosen to work together initially. Thanks again to the pupils and support staff, see you in the new year.
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