Welcome to the final episode of our Crescendo Music Education Podcast series with Deb Brydon, where we explore the vibrant world of Year 6 music education! As our Year 6 students prepare for graduation and the exciting transition to high school, we focus on keeping the joy of music alive in the classroom.

In this episode, we delve into the unique aspects of teaching music to Year 6 students. We’ll discuss how to balance preparation for graduation with maintaining engaging and fun singing games, ensuring that even in their final year of primary school, music remains a source of enjoyment and creativity.

Join us as we share strategies, tips, and activities to make the most of this important year, helping your students leave with lasting memories and a deep love for music. Let’s celebrate the journey of Year 6 students and ensure they end their primary school years on a high note!

Links Mentioned in the Episode:
🎧 Liza Jane (YouTube)
🐥 Chickens and Hens (YouTube)

• How to Play Chickens and Hens 

🇯🇵 Japanese Rice Bun Making (YouTube)
👋🏻 Omochio Rice Pounding Game (YouTube)
💻 Shibuya Roll Call (The Office)
🌸 I like the flowers (Discovery Channel and Animation)
🎶 Treaty 

Where to find me: 

Crescendo Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crescendocommunity
Official Crescendo Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrescendoMusicEd/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrescendoMusicEd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/crescendomusic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-o-shea-62a3741b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CrescendoDeb

Introduction

Here is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 107.

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to elder’s past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

If you’d prefer to listen to this episode, click here!

About ‘Read the Episode’: Sometimes, we would rather skim visually than listen to a podcast! That’s a great way to learn too!
The transcript of episode 107 of The Crescendo Music Education Podcast is below.

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Debbie O’Shea 

Welcome to the Crescendo Music Education Podcast. And this is the last in our series where we’re having a little look at each year level that we teach. Because I’m joined again by my intentional collaborator, Deb Brydon.  Hello Deb.

Deb Brydon 

Hi everyone.

Debbie O’Shea 

So we’re going to have a little bird’s eye look, little view, at Year Six. So the Year Sixes are turning, oh goodness, what is it? Prep, five. Deb, you work out what age.

Deb Brydon 

It’s 11.

Debbie O’Shea 

They’re turning 11.

Deb Brydon 

Oh, look, I’ve got a Year Six. They’re turning 11 or 12, mines turning 11 in a week, but he’s the youngest.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes. Deb’s personally got a Year Six. That’s what she means.

Deb Brydon 

Yes, so 11 or 12.

Big Fish and “Graduation”

Debbie O’Shea 

These little people, hormones are starting to flow through some of their little bodies. They know they’re going to high school soon. They’re the big fish in the little pond of primary school. And we all know that that can present difficulties, like when we had, not that long ago, we had Grade Sevens in our primary school and it was the Grade Sevens that got like this. And now, of course, the Sevens are gone, so now the Sixes have taken their place. Yeah, I am the big fish in the little pond.

Deb Brydon 

Yep. For sure.

Debbie O’Shea 

This is where again, which I think I mentioned in Grade Five. For me this is where you’ve got to really cash in all the credit that that you’ve earnt over the years working with them. I really like my Year Sixes this year, we’re having a really good time, and I have taught these kids since Prep. So this is the seventh year I have been teaching these kids. So I should have a lot of credit. So I will just start giving you a little overview about what I think about Year Six. A lot of time in Year Six tends to be, especially towards the end of the year, about their graduation.

And I want to say right up front, I’ve never liked the term graduation, right? I live with it because that’s what they say. But it’s not graduation. To me, graduation is you have gone and studied voluntarily and you have got your Degree in Education or your whatever. You’ve worked hard. That’s graduation. This is called compulsory promotion to the next level of schooling. That’s not graduation. Sorry. Okay that’s my little bugbear. But I live with the word graduation, because everyone uses it.

Deb Brydon 

Fair enough.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, all right, so that’s just a little personal thing. So back to graduation at our school, because music is a big part of our school. Music plays a big part in their graduation ceremony, which is in the evening. Our instrumental kids form an orchestra all of the Year Sixes, so the band kids join with the string kids, and they play a little piece together, which is very difficult, as those people who are involved in bands and strings know they learn in different keys. So they have to sort of compromise and work something out. But they get together and we have literally a Year Six orchestra and that’s very special.

The Year Sixes from our choirs, and we have a senior choir that’s Grade Five and Six, but just the Sixes will have a couple of practices and a special piece, and they will sing. That’s the Year Six choir. Of course, I help out with those two things, because I’m the choral music coordinator and I’m the instrumental music coordinator, though I don’t conduct those things, but where I come in is the Year Six song. All of the Year Sixes sing a song and that just takes a lot of organising, planning, practicing and that seems to take up the latter half of the year. So that’s a big thing, the graduation ceremony.

Graduation Songs

Deb Brydon 

Yeah, at my school too and we write a song for the teachers as well. So we do a graduation song, which is usually a pop song of some kind, that everyone sings and it’s a different one every year. But then we also write a song that they sing for their teachers, about their teachers. So each class writes a different verse, and each class sings their own verse. And I use folk songs as the tune. So I’ve been at this school for three years now. The first year I did Liza Jane as our tune. The second year I did Rocky Mountain. And this year I’m doing I Like the Flowers, and we just write a verse or two, maybe if it’s short about their teacher, and it’s really lovely. It’s lovely for them to reflect on Primary School. And we’re just doing that little bit of text setting really, and fitting it into the music. We just do it as a class and then the whole class sings it. And it sounds great as well, because they’re singing in a good key which the pop songs are not always exactly what you would choose, and it’s a bit more limited range, perhaps.

And yes, they just sound really good, and the teachers are really touched by it as well. So that takes up a fair bit of my fourth term, practicing that and writing that. And then we also make a video of our graduation song, not that one, the other one, the pop song where each class films a verse or whatever, around the school in different places around the school. So then the kids have got that as a little keepsake of their time in primary school with all their friends in it, and all of that sort of thing. We started doing that in covid when we couldn’t do a live performance. And now we do both. We play the video on the screen behind them, and then they sing live as well. So a bit of fun. A lot of hard work.

Debbie O’Shea

I am borrowing from Deb the videoing around the school this year, so I’ll divide up so that 6A will have verse one and 6A can choose where they wish to be with their friends, and that will be a really nice addition. Last year, we actually had an original song that was written mainly by an exceedingly talented Year Six boy who did all of the backing in GarageBand, actually no, he played it in on the piano, and then added backing.

And then we had a small group, any kids that would like to come and work with us and with me having the final say with the shaping of the phrases, let’s say, and we have a song now that’s going to be our song each year I’m hoping, because I just think that would be nice, and it would not only be cutting the workload issue, but each class could, each year cohort could put their own stamp on it. So that’s why I thought this year we’ll video the kids around the school and put that as part of the video. And again we’ll show that, yeah, while they’re singing on stage. So I’m taking that idea from Deb. Thank you.

Deb Brydon 

You’re welcome.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah. The other thing that I want to mention with Year Six is I make sure and in fact, I’m going to put this in my lesson plans too. I want to make sure that I take photos during the music lesson to put in their Year Six year book. Depending some years there’s more room for photos than others, some years they actually have like, massive collage of photos on the inside, on the end pages, inside cover. So if I can get some class music photos in there, I think that’s really magic.

So I take lots of photos and put it in a folder and share with the teacher/parent that’s doing the yearbook stuff. So I think that’s just a little hint out there for other music teachers. Don’t get forgotten in that whole yearbook thing, which most schools have, and is a big thing. At least get some visuals in there so that music, it lifts the profile of music.

Deb Brydon 

A bit of advocacy.

Debbie O’Shea 

Year Six is an opportunity for that advocacy, don’t you think?

Running Out Of Time

Debbie O’Shea 

So I never, ever, ever seem to get enough time to teach Year Six. I just don’t, I try and make sure I’ve covered bass clef, because they’re about to go to high school, and I’m thinking, I’ve gotta make sure they have some, because we work so much, well I do anyway, work so much in treble clef because that’s where we’re singing and that’s what we’re reading. So I try and make sure I include bass clef. And the other thing that we really need to not lose sight of is that we have to play games. They are still children.

Deb Brydon 

For sure.

Deb Brydon 

Yeah, I’m not always great at that Debbie, confession time. I have to be so conscious about putting in games in Year Six.

Debbie O’Shea 

But by the same token, because they’re older, it’s not like when I look at how many games I’ve got in say Grade Two, woah there’s so many games. They do not need, like a new game every week. You need less games I think, because you don’t have time to teach them all for a start, but they would rather just play a familiar game. And as we get down, we’ll talk about a couple of the games that we play when we’re talking about repertoire. And as with all the other year levels, I’ll pop into the notes, a copy of my current overview, which has actually changed slightly. Now I look at this, it’s changed slightly.

This is the version nine, uh, version 8.4 of the Australian curriculum. So anyway it’s slightly historical now, like, Oh, it’s from last year and this year is slightly different. There’s not a lot new apart from bass clef, I add fa and ti, we go diatonic, and I try and work quite a bit in diatony, though I still do pentatonic and la pentatonic. Oh, I love me some la pentatonic stuff. And we talk about form composition. But it’s not a lot new, really.

Deb Brydon 

And bringing back those old games we sort of talked about in the Grade Five session as well, but bringing back the old games that we’ve played over the years, because Year Six is our culminating time as well.

Debbie O’Shea 

One of the things that I would really love to do, have not done, this is something for future Debbie. I would love to somehow list, or maybe use wheel of names, or I just want a whole lot of games and go, Here is a whole lot of games that we’ve done from Prep to Year Five. Let’s see what we’re going to play today and either get them to choose or do a random thing. It would just be so fun to have them all there, but at the moment that’s just a bridge too far. I don’t have time to do all that, but I would really like to do that. So let’s talk singing.

Singing

Deb Brydon 

Sounds great. Yeah, so I’ve just got one in here, Black Socks, they never get dirty, which is great because it’s in compound time. And I do a little game with this as well, where they pass around a black sock that’s got some compound time little mini flash cards inside it, and when they get halfway through the song, they pull out a flash card and put it down and at the end they clap it, just a bit of rhythmic practice in there as well, but it’s a great one for singing. It’s great fun.

Debbie O’Shea 

I love it. I learnt that from you and I’ve never done it.

Deb Brydon 

There you go, pop it in this term.

Debbie O’Shea 

I will when I get off, when I get off this, oh, I’m gonna have to look back through here and my planning is done for my next couple of weeks, I tell you. So I hope this is helping our listeners out there with these ideas. I’ll find myself a clean black sock. I won’t use a dirty one.

Deb Brydon 

No, no, get a new one. Yeah.

Debbie O’Shea 

The songs I’ve put in, I love Viva la Musica. It means a lot to me, because it was one of the first canons I learnt when I started attending Kodály workshops as a student.

Debbie O’Shea 

101 years, yeah. Like since I was 19 or something and I went This is a magnificent song, so it actually means a lot to me. I think that’s nice and the Irish Blessing, I love that. And there’s a two part version that I do with them. And they’re great for singing, great for singing. And I love Sweetly the Swan Sings for solfa, because that I just haven’t found anything better for diatony and early diatony, with the (sung) do do do do do do’ ti la so, la so fa mi, fa mi re do. It’s so great for singing and playing, and we sing in letter names. It’s just a lovely little canon. So that’s one of my faves for Grade Six.

Deb Brydon 

100 years ago.

Deb Brydon 

Yeah, that’s a nice song. Alright, what else?

Debbie O’Shea 

Well, for solfa you’ve got down Tideo.

Games, Unlimited Games

Deb Brydon 

Yeah. So I like to do this one. I think I put it in Grade Four, as well as the introduction to the real song of Tideo. But then there’s this great version, Pass One Drink Cup Tideo, that a lady down in Melbourne, I want to say Martina wrote and it’s just pass one drink cup tideo, pass one drink cup tideo, tapping on the drink cups tideo. And it’s a cup passing game as well. So a bit of fun, but it’s still got that same solfa that we can revise as well with the high do in it.

And another one that I quite like for solfa is Omachia, which Debbie’s going to talk about in her games next. But it’s great because it’s pentatonic and quite easy for them to derive the solfa of each different section. Yeah. So Debbie maybe straight into that one now. When we talk about games.

Debbie O’Shea 

Oh the game is just magic. The Japanese rice pounding. I first learned it at the OAKE conference in 2015, when I flew over and went to the conference and flew back, it was too short but very sweet. Somebody was doing, gee, I wish I could give them credit, but it was all just so big and overwhelming. It is just the most fabulous game. And I show the kids the video. Oh, I better put in the link, hadn’t I? I’ll put in the link to the YouTube clip that I show the students, and it just blows their mind. He’s the the fastest traditional mochi maker in Japan. And it’s so fun.

Deb Brydon 

He’s so passionate. I love him.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, he’s wonderful. So I just think that is by far the best, best game for Grade Six.

Deb Brydon 

Hand clapping, partner game. Good fun.

Debbie O’Shea 

I also love Liza Jane as a clapping game with a partner which you can do in two with a pair, and then you can do it in canon in fours, going across a square. It is just magic. I’m not sure if I have a link to a video of that. I don’t think I do.

Deb Brydon 

I’m not sure either. I have a feeling it might be, no, I don’t know.

Debbie O’Shea 

I’ll see. Let me put in here I’ll see if I can find a link. I’m not sure otherwise, I don’t know, otherwise I might be able to make the video myself. We’ll see.

Deb Brydon 

Yeah, we might have to do that. It’s fabulous. Yeah. And my game that I’ve got in there is Chickens and Hens, which once again, is bit of a clappy hand moving thing, who stole my chickens and my hens, and progressively gets more difficult. And there’s some great videos of that, of Debbie teaching that in Maryborough at the conference 100 years ago. But yeah, sometimes I forget how to do it, and I just quick Google and up she comes, and Debbie can remind me online. Thanks, Debbie.

Debbie O’Shea 

Do you know what? I’d forgotten about that. I was just thinking, Okay, how can we show people? Oh, hold on.

Deb Brydon 

Yeah, easy.

Debbie O’Shea 

Oh, love it. Love it. It’s a great game, and it’s certainly like that Year Six type level, because it becomes quite complex, yeah.

Deb Brydon 

It’s tricky.

Debbie O’Shea 

And I love it too, because you can just do it in sections. You can just teach that first action, and they think, Oh, we know the game. And then a week or two later.

Deb Brydon 

The next week it builds up.

Reluctant Students

Debbie O’Shea 

Let’s do the next verse. So I think that’s great that you can string it out and challenge them. And a fairly recent find for me is Shibuya. I will put in a link to the video from The Office that I show the children as in the show The Office, the American one, and where they do Shibuya on the bus. This has been my goal for my starting to be or already disengaged year sixes, because there are some kids, as we said at the beginning, that are starting to shut off a little bit. Shut off, isn’t the right word. You know what I’m saying.

Deb Brydon 

Become a bit reluctant.

Debbie O’Shea 

That’s a much better word thanks Deb. They’ve become a bit reluctant. And this is great because it’s a chant they’re not singing and they get a chance to make up words. And it’s simple. It’s got a really clear structure. And I make up a couple, and they have the first part, they have the stem for the made up part. And I get them to sit in groups, their own choice, pairs, fours, don’t care. And they can just choose one person, and they can write about their name. So it’s their choice so if there’s someone that thinks, Well, I don’t want my name written about. That’s okay. They write about someone else. There’s always someone in the group that wants it, and they come up with the funniest things. It’s magic. They really only need to work out two rhyming words at the end of line two and four. So just magic. I love Shibuya. I love pass the beat around the room.

The way that I do pass the beat around the room is not in 4/4 or 2/4 or whatever. It’s in 7s, 7/4 maybe seven note. So it’s pass the beat around the room, pass the beat. A lot of people play it pass the beat around the room, rest, pass the beat. But no, I don’t have the rest. I love it. I love that feeling of the not being even, pass the beat round the room, pass the beat, and it’s one child per syllable, per word, except for a-round, and it’s so fun.

And once they can do it, if they say it at the wrong time, or if they’re late, they sit, and then when they’re sitting, you have to inner hear their word so it’s pass the ……. a round. So it gets increasingly difficult as more children are out. Once they play it really well we pass different things around the room, pass the chicken around the room. So I always put whatever we put on the word beat has to be on one beat, even if it’s a word like chicken. And we add actions whenever you say that word like chicken, and if they don’t do the action, they’re out. Look. It’s just fun. You end up with two minutes left in a lesson, no time to start this other thing that you thought you might do. Quickly let’s play past the beat around the room before you go. Loads of fun.

Deb Brydon 

Yeah, and I do put the rest in at the end. And I’ve done it with mass groups, like at our instrumental workshops and things like that, with 150 kids, or in little groups doing it. It’s great fun, very portable and quick to learn. Good fun.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, instant happy, isn’t it? I reckon it’s one of those, have it up your sleeve.

Deb Brydon 

Yeah? True.

The Parachute and Treaty

Debbie O’Shea 

As the music teacher you just never know, when suddenly there’s an assembly and someone hasn’t turned up and someone says, quick do something. Like you know you’re the one that’s got things up your sleeve. Yeah, I also love Parachute by Rosa. Now, I’ll just check with Rosa, and she has allowed me to share it before, I might even be able to put the actual song there so that you can access it. If she will share, and she does normally say yes, because she’s lovely. Thank you, Rosa. Shout out to Rosa.

It is one that she’s composed where the kids have to swap places under the parachute, just, oh my goodness, you get out a Parachute and Grade Sixes go wild. And it’s just a really lovely song to sing as well. That’s one of my favourites. And I’m going to let Deb talk about Treaty. Go for it.

Deb Brydon 

Oh okay? Yeah.

Deb Brydon 

Okay, sure.  We both do a whole sort of, units the wrong word, but sort of focus on the song, Treaty. (sings) “Treaty yeah, treaty now”, that one, as we’re sort of looking at music from different cultures and music that has meaning and music that communicates ideas and all of that sort of thing, and revitalises cultures. So, yeah, it takes up a fair amount of our Year Six program at the beginning of the year. But kids quite enjoy getting in and singing it, too.

Debbie O’Shea 

l am.

Debbie O’Shea 

And it is a great Aussie rock song that we should all know. And that’s the first time that indigenous language was included in, well I’m pretty sure it was the first time, certainly one of the first times, that was actually included. So although it’s an Aussie rock icon song with electric guitars. It’s also got indigenous language. It’s got didgeridoos, it’s got images of of indigenous people dancing, and it’s all based, especially those of you who aren’t Australian. It’s to remind people that a treaty was promised through the Barunga statement by Bob Hawke in year, Deb year, what’s the year?

Deb Brydon 

In 1988.

Debbie O’Shea 

Thank you. I know I should know, heavens, in 1988 and that the treaty didn’t come. We actually show the Year Sixes the clip from the ABC News and that the treaty never came. The Year Sixes are really horrified. They go But the Prime Minister, he promised there’d be a treaty. So because no treaty came Mandawuy Yunupingu and Paul Kelly got together and wrote this song, saying, as long as this song survives, people will remember that a treaty was promised.

Now, what a powerful vehicle music is. That we are discussing this in our classrooms now, and this is an event that happened in 1988, so I think if you’re trying to teach your students that music has meaning and purpose and power, what a great example. Apart from the fact that it’s just a really cool song, and you hear the kids singing it out in the playground. So I think that’s a bit of magic. It would work in Year Five too. I think.,

Deb Brydon 

Yeah, probably. But yeah, it’s one of those save it ups for me.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, me too. Yeah, it’s going to stay in Grade Six for me. Yeah, magic, magic song.

Deb Brydon 

I’ve got two others that I quite like in Grade Six. One’s The Burglar Song.  (sings) “Late last night by the light of the moon, I saw a burglar. They crept into my room” and then they sing individually. “Was it you?” “No, it wasn’t me”. So it’s just that little bit of individual singing, and with the sort of minor sound as well. They’re quite happy to play that and accuse each other of being a burglar. So bit of fun. Look, I’ve already talked about I Like the Flowers but it’s great for a little canon.

And it seems like a song that they wouldn’t get into but they actually do. And there’s this really great video clip for Discovery Channel where people sing about I Like the Flowers, I Like the Outback. I like the whatever different thing, underneath the ocean and things like this. And they don’t all sing beautifully in the YouTube clip, but it’s quite magic. And then the kids want to sing it and make up their own as well. So that’s, that’s one of my new favourites for Grade Six as well.

Debbie O’Shea 

I love it.

Deb Brydon 

Also, 3 chords. So as we’re continuing ukulele in Grade Six, it’s only got three chords in it, so they can play it as well. Well the simplified version’s only got three chords, perhaps you could say.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, yes. I know sometimes when I’m teaching ukulele, I might round some of the edges off some of the chords.

Deb Brydon 

It is simpler.

Debbie O’Shea 

Just the simple version, yeah. Deb, this is the end of our series where we have a look at each of our year levels that we teach. I I just hope that our listeners have gone That’s a good idea. Oh, I might try that. I know I’ve learnt a lot. Even though I talk to you virtually daily, I’ve still learnt stuff.

Deb Brydon 

Yeah, for sure. And remembered stuff. It’s the thing, you always forget all these great things that you can do. So yeah, have fun.

Debbie O’Shea 

I have loved it, and I really thank you so much for joining us.

Deb Brydon 

No problem.

Debbie O’Shea 

As always. I love working with you Deb.

Deb Brydon 

Back at you. Bye, everyone.

Debbie O’Shea 

Bye.

Sign-Off

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes and transcript and all sorts of information on crescendo.com.au. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast or found it valuable, you might like to rate it on your podcast player and leave a review. I’d really appreciate it if you did. All I can be as the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. Until next time, bye.

Just for Laughs

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