Sustainable Early Years Music (SEYM) is a programme delivered by SoCo Music Project and supported by Youth Music and Arts Council England. It supports the learning and wellbeing of children with additional needs through meaningful and transformational music engagement. Working collaboratively with settings, practitioners, carers, and local authority teams, we have supported hundreds of children and practitioners in specialist schools, nurseries, pre-schools, childminders, and multiple community settings.

On a daily basis, neurodiverse children with complex additional needs wake up to a world full of sensory environments and social structures not designed with their needs in mind. They often find simple daily activities, access to community spaces, transitions and expectations confusing, threatening or overwhelming.

Through SEYM we have sought to integrate music facilitation into the wider scope of knowledge and expertise provided by carers and practitioners – presenting music not in terms of mainstream curricular pedagogy, but as central to our emotional, social, learning and sensory experiences. Seeing music as part of living and learning, we support children and the different communities around them. This is key to our vision of a sustainable provision of music engagement less reliant on permanent support from specialists. We believe that caring for children entails caring for and supporting the adults working with them.

How SEYM works

SEYM’s project architecture consists of three strands: setting participation, community engagement, and development.

Setting participation entails project activities we do in individual EY settings. It is based on three interrelated activities: co-facilitation of 1:1 and group music engagement, knowledge-sharing and mentoring with setting practitioners, and data collection for the purposes of evaluation and project development.

An example of setting participation is the mid to long-term co-facilitation and mentoring activities we provide for a pre-school or childminder, or school setting.

Community engagement entails project activities in the wider EY/SEND community beyond our work in EY pedagogic settings. It extends our support to community spaces and informal events, and to reinforce and expand our professional network. It is based on four semi-independent areas of activity: wider music engagement facilitation outside formal settings, wider professional development, dissemination and participation in public events, and collaboration and partnership. These activities support important areas of our work such as Parent Outreach and Inclusion, and Wraparound Care. Not least, it is key for us to diversify and adapt our offer to changing needs

Examples of community engagement are contributions to Day Events run by local organisations, short term engagement with practitioners in community settings, participation in conferences, or meetings with project partners.

Development entails improving operational and strategic aspects of SEYM, developing new knowledge, and expanding the participant we reach. It builds on interrelated areas of activity: core project improvement, practice development, strategic expansion, and exploratory research questions.

Examples of project development include adapting our work to meet the needs of a new type of setting, or improving our mentoring contents and strategies on the basis of data we collect over the years, and conducting research to gain fresh understandings on the needs and priorities of children and their communities.

Sibling Programmes

SEYM is based on a project architecture consisting of principles, strategies, operational and implementation methods we developed over the years. A Sibling Programme consists of work that uses different aspects of SEYM project architecture but sits outside the Early Years/Neurodiversity participant focus area. Currently, all Sibling Projects are based on programmes for older neurodiverse learners. Often, these programmes sit alongside standard Setting Participation work, for example, in primary school settings.

Early Years programmes focusing on a type of provision (e.g. music engagement and outdoor learning) that includes both neurodiverse and neurotypical learners).

Hybrid Programmes

Hybrid programmes are generally included within the Community Engagement strand, and consist of work in informal settings where EY/neurodiverse learners participate alongside older or neurotypical learners. Examples of this are SEND Day Events (wider age range), Stay and Play (neurodiverse and neurotypical learners), Wraparound Care (wider age range, neurodiverse and neurotypical learners), programmes focusing on a type of provision, such as music engagement and outdoor learning (neurodiverse and neurotypical learners, potentially wider age range)

What we have achieved

Since 2019…

• We have reached over 600 children and 125 practitioners across 20 preschools, 9 childminder settings and 2 specialist schools through our setting participation and community engagement work.

• We have reached over 120 parents through our community engagement and setting participation work.

• We have participated in over 30 public events, including conferences, training days, team building days, facilitation and parent-carer engagement days, and contributions to informal community events.