“Initially the children were quite reserved and did not know what to expect. As soon as Ana and I gave the children space and time to express themselves and room for mistakes, they began to open up. The warm- ups were both fun and perhaps a little daunting for some because at times they were put on the spot. I noticed that all the children loved responding to the sketches of music using their own words and responding to simple questions about how it made them feel. They enjoyed the creative process, the selecting and exploring more than rehearsing and performing. However, once the performed, they were proud of themselves and really enjoyed the experience.”

“Important to identify how the role of the composer fits into this work. Once the initial exploring and connection is made I am facilitating pupils’ work as a composer. They know their ideas, imaginative and practical, can be cultivated and rehearsed into what they imagined and hoped ‘good’ music to be. Not Children’s music as the stereo-type often implies.”

“Many creative decisions were intuitive and were made by listening to the music and watching the movement together. Ana and I made options for the pupils so that negotiations could be simple and fair and would suit the work we were focusing on at any given time. We negotiated other creative decisions through open questioning, showing pupils there were many ways in which to achieve the same results and we all held a respectful manner in which to go forwards in making decisions. Time was also a deciding factor and numbers of pupils. Practical limitations can be useful if stuck on a decision. There were enough elements to pick and chose and work out what was best in the end. I always find the most challenging of all negotiations is not having enough instruments for each child, and having limited time for the individual – time to sit with them and show them what is possible on an instrument (to show the details) Perhaps one to one time is possible in our next project.)”

“I think we did well in differentiating and identifying where the children's strengths were. We selected roles well and tried to give each child the chance to do what they enjoyed, whether that was moving, playing an instrument or conducting.”

“By playing through the sketches, and their own choice of repertoire, the SCO musicians were able to show the pupils what their instruments could do and talk about techniques. I felt that each musician was sensitive and open towards pupils' ideas and could identify what the pupils were hoping to achieve. They helped the pupils get through certain challenges through open questioning and suggestions - things that Ana and I would not have seen because our minds were focused on other elements of the piece. They also showed the pupils what was possible, inspired the pupils with their beautiful playing, to want to pick up an instrument and learn it after the project was over.”

“The way in which we worked together with the pupils was very collaborative. The pupils' ideas about how to create a picture through music, how to express movement in music, how to produce atmosphere through music and how they lead the direction of the story line within the music and movement pieces were impressive. I felt I needed to give the pupils more space to explore the instruments and time to work out their melodies after the initial improvisation period. Also trying out new skills and learning more about the SCO musicians' instruments was limited. I was pushing the pupils along a little too much towards the end for the final performance. However, we maintained many of the pupils' ideas through the pieces, but perhaps each pupil could have achieved more on their particular instrument. The themes, ideas, concepts and collaboration between the movement and music was pupil centred, however, the sketches and instrument choices were very much chosen by myself. Ana had to guide the pupils on how to interpret the music through movement, but once this was understood, the pupils expressed themselves freely.”