To hate modern school assembly songs?

[MintyChapstick]

Following on from a recent thread about those bloody awful modern class photos.

When I was growing up in the 90's we used to sing religious based songs like All Things Bright and Beautiful and Who Put the Colours in the Rainbow?Now they sing bloody weird shit about school rules, one about the lunchtime queaue. A few even have raps in them! They are hideous and to be quite frank, mostly drivel. For some reason I really pine for the songs I sang as a child.

It's nothing to do with school assemblies becoming more secular either, because they have to have collective worship as part of the curriculum and still say the Lords Prayer, hear Bible stories so I don't understand why they can't sing proper old songs?

CharleyDavidson in fact I don't care if you work in a faith school or not, you should be utterly ashamed of the religious indoctrination you are inflicting upon your students.

The problem is that if you say hymns are unsuitable, you're losing hundreds of typical assembly songs, and there isn't that much to replace them with!

The majority of songs aren't written for children.

I suspect you'll find that a lot of hymns for children were written by nice people who wanted them to have more fun/easy to sing songs during Sunday school.

Children don't buy music in general, so there's no drive to write commercial music for them in the way there was to write hymns for them.

I don't care if you lose hundred of typical assembly songs. That's not a reason to make children sing hymns.

There are plenty of songs out there suitable for children (if people aren't so stuck on 'what we've always done' and use their imaginations a bit).

Fair enough if you've chosen a church school, but in non-religious schools we shouldn't be forcing worship on anyone (and that's what singing hymns is).

Can I canvas opinion on this thread? At a recent assembly the children began singing 'seven years old' by Lukas Graham. Initially it sounded good until the all sang about 'smoking herbs and drinking liquor'. I was so shocked I almost fell over! But no one else seemed to bat an eyelid.

What would you do? I don't think I'm happy with my 2 dcs hearing/singing that a tender ages. Complicated by the fact I work there.....
I know they sing pop songs in regular singing assemblies rather than hymns but was a bit shocked.

Is that me being an old fogey or is it inappropriate????

I still play songs from this in assembly!!

Last school disco the DJ had the juniors sing along to that heinous song. Every single one knew every single word.

My favourite!!

I'm a music teacher and this thread has got me depressed.

Got to jump in and say it's bloody hard to choose a song for assembly. Parents will complain about ANYTHING - read the thread. These are all the opinions I am supposed to take into account.

I am supposed to educate the kids, obey the school rules and now face judgement from the parents because the song will either be too old / too modern / not religious enough / too religious / not all the kids like it / the kids like it so much they sing it constantly and drive their parents mad... Add your other complaints to the list.

Thank God the kids are great and music is wonderful because parents - you are not.

"CharleyDavidson in fact I don't care if you work in a faith school or not, you should be utterly ashamed of the religious indoctrination you are inflicting upon your students."

Yep. I repeat, Church School. You may not be aware of the difference between the requirements of your average primary school and Church schools.

We have a different curriculum in RE. A completely different syllabus with much more of an emphasis on Christianity than you will find in your average non-church school. Completely separate school inspections just for the RE and our whole school worship.

The rector comes in to deliver assemblies once a week too. And we go to church for services there several times a year.

I believe I said that I teach a mixture of songs, out of the ark etc. I'm not up there preaching hell and damnation. But we sing hymns as part of collective worship, which is a legal requirement in schools still (whole different debate there for non church schools).

Our parents send their children to us knowing that it is a church school. Just because you don't approve doesn't mean it isn't what we are supposed to be doing because of being, you know, a CHURCH school.

This thread is full of people fondly remembering the type of hymns that I still teach the children. None of them is shouting religious indoctrination.

for TheLyingBitch.

I suppose I see children's hymns as cultural - I have no strong feelings about the religious side, so I appreciate them for their musical worth and lack of drink and drugs references

Until last year I taught at a VA C of E school and we sang all the old classics.

My favourite was Oh Jesus I Have Promised (to live thee to the end) despite being of another faith entirely I used to sing with gusto.

My new school has no specific religious affiliation and we don't sing at all :(

My favourite from primary was Rise and Shine (with the actions of course) and When a Knight won his spurs.

pearlymum On behalf of CharlieDavidson ODFOD

polkadots I agree with the swearing, drugs and cultural aspect. I got in a bit of trouble for teaching silent night once. My reasoning is that it is a beautiful piece of music. I really don't care if the kids believe or don't - musically it's gorgeous. It's like telling my A level class to avoid Bach because he wrote music for the church.

The thing is, the parent sitting beside you in assembly will feel very strongly about some other aspect of song choice.

Except that being unhappy about forcing worship from a particular faith on your child through assembly music isn't quite the same as not liking that it's a rap or whatever.

Anything that doesn't involve religion, swearing, or references to drug use or sex is pretty much OK. Parents don't have to like the musical choices, but they shouldn't be offensive or religious in ordinary state schools. In church schools, people have already signed up to the religion so anything should be OK so long as it doesn't involve wearing and references to drug use/sex.

And it's completely different for A-level music students (who are actually studying the music) than it is for ordinary assemblies or in primary schools.

I think failing to pass on the cultural heritage of the country you live in to the next generation is letting children down. In England at least, that includes hymns, whether you believe them or not. But I don't get this 'omg my child might catch God-cooties' attitude some atheists have. And I find the philistinism that you must need to want to concrete over the incredibly rich artistic and musical culture of Christianity bizarre and pretty depressing.

Thelyingbitch, speaking for myself, I am happy with hymns and (if you care to dig them out) communist anthems, old music and modern music, rap and Bach. I could even see the funny side of the primary singing about getting high with a little help from their friends.

But I think you might agree that praying God to make the boundaries of the Empire expand wider and wider, whilst waving British flags in time to the music, was a little insensitive when performed on the outbreak of war that had caused deep unease in large sectors of the population and was widely held to be illegal. There is simply no way that was merely about the beauty of Elgar's music.

Though if you are after catchy tunes, suitable for communal singing, I can strongly recommend the Soviet anthem

StepAway they don't teach maths badly just because its primary school, so thanks, I'll try not to teach music badly just because its primary.

How would it work? Now class, you are old enough now to hear the dangerous music that references a God that I don't give a damn if you worship or not. What age would be safe enough?

Do parents censor art in the same way?

Cory clearly I may as well do the soviet anthem. It would probably get less complaints!

I'm off to download a copy now.

Well I love Spring Chicken and Wake Up. There's nothing wrong with a mix of new and old.

There's a school that I work at that sings True Colours with signing. I have to try really hard not to cry when I hear the children singing it. Also World in Union. Very moving.

I'm from a family of musicians, all with a wide breadth of musical awareness and interests. We've all played at civil weddings and actually fought to be allowed to play music which has religious lyrics - because the instrumental music on its own is not religious.

I'm a music teacher I'm a secular school. I love hymns so I get my fix of those by leading a Sunday school. At work, I teach purely secular songs for assemblies.

I have worked incredibly hard to get the children in our school singing. We don't sing along to recorded voices, but we do use backing tracks. We sing in parts, harmonies and rounds and we relish the challenge!

Finding appropriate songs is a nightmare. Some pop songs work, some don't. I love a lot of the out of the ark stuff. It's fun to teach and the kids love it. Songs for a joyful assembly is one of our favourites- even our 4yr olds love belting out bright new shiny day....

Going back to the appropriate lyrics stuff, a lot of people are lazy. I will change lyrics to make them appropriate or we don't do the song. I was livid when my own 9yo dd came home from her school singing a song including the lyric 'one night stand'. In the hope of getting her teacher to think, I asked dd to ask her teacher what that meant. She came home and said the teacher had said she had to ask me! Haven't heard that song for a while though.....

You really can't please all of the people all of the time. I do my best to provide a variety of songs that teach different skills and techniques. Don't like them? I don't care. I'm absolutely confident in my repertoire and I wish you could hear my kids sing.

Our kids have to sing a Bruno Mars pop song in assembly. "you can count on me like one, two, three, I'll be there...bla bla bla.."

5yo DD2's favourite song is Land of Hope and ?Glory.

I have always been surprised how different the C of E and Catholic hymns are