Before I storm in and complain, do ALL primary school teachers ...

[Spidermama]

... play music in the classroom when the kids are working?

My dd has complained of having to listen to crap music (eg - Heartbeat, why do you miss when my baby kisses me etc) when she's trying to get on with her literacy worksheets.

My ds then said his teacher also puts on music. (Different teacher, different school).

Also my ds who's 7 told me today his class didn't get their French lesson because instead they watched the end of A Bugs Life.

WTF?

As a secondary teacher I sometimes put music on.

The right music can actually help them concentrate.

Plus a lot of kids aren't used to working in silence.

I also used the radio as a discipline tool in that I put the radio on low and the pupils HAVE to be quiet to hear it.

Nothing at all wrong with it IMO

No music played in 5yo DD's classroom AFAIK.

The film thing - would depend on reason behind it all; could be plenty of valid reasons why this happened.

I think that's pretty atrocious tbh . I would definitely be complaining. It's a school, not Club 18-30!!

Music is often played in assembly but I've never known it being played in class unless for a specific reason, e.g. listening to Mozart because they are studying music of that era, or some such. Sounds decidedly dodgy to me. Do you think the teacher is trying to drown out the sound of the children??

Maybe the French lesson was replaced by the dvd because the French teacher couldn't come?

no, i hve known it to happen, nice background music..

Nope. DS says the French teacher was there watching the DVD.

When I was teaching I did use music in my GCSE and A Level classes at times; also have done when teaching at the prison. BUt this is when the students were doing coursework and independent work such as computer research, rather than something they needed to concentrate really hard on.

ROFL at "it's a school club, not 18-30"

A bit of low level music really is no big deal. I HATE working in silence. I always revised and studied better with music on, or background noise.

i work in a primary school and sometimes music is used for sound control as Pixiefish says. If they are working independently or in small groups then they have to be able to hear the music. Works well.

The problem is one person's 'nice background music' is another person's bloody, irritating dreadful crappy din when they're trying to work. I don't they should have to put up with it.

Loads of teachers that I know have music on in class.

It can calm rowdy kids down, it can spur them on to work.
It can be used as a timer (eg- you have this song to complete the task- the music will end when the task ends)

Some of the best teachers that I know use music in class

Yes, it's quite common. Depends on individual teachers - my son has 2 teachers, one generally puts on classical music, the other loves Dolly Parton!

It isn't all the time by any means, just a very very small part of school time. It's usually when they are engaged in an activity that doesn't require 100% full-on brain activity or exam-like quietness.

The children are also allowed to take in their own music occasionally.

I don't see any problem with that as long as it isn't too often, and it doesn't prevent children from concentrating. I often do various activities to music, and I used to work and revise quite effectively to the right sort and right volume of music when I was a student.

Surely you dont think they should work in absolute silence all the time?

music yes, "golden hour" at end of week, can draw or finish off some work if they have it left.

my dds teach plays guitar to them too.

some useful info here

I jus tasked dd and apparantly her teacher does it as well.

Personally I find it VERY hard to concentrate with music playing. Can't even read the newspaper if the radio's on.

There is some evidence that playing some music has a significant positive effect of the co-ordination of stidents with some SEN (Work done by Ann Savin IIRC) she found that specific bits of Mozart worked, even when speeded up, slowed down and most amazingly played backwatds!

Unaware of any studies on Heartbeat

Lots of students don't like working in silence. Instrumental music is sometimes thpought of as 'better' tp work to than music with vocals, since you tend to concentrate on the words too much.

I use Good Vibrations when I teach sound. And use the Queen of the night Aria to show kids the difference between pitch and volume

DSs reception class often had classical music playing

Really? That must be v irritating.

Maybe if you had been taught with low level background noise at a young age you might not have this problem

I put on low volume motzart when we do Big Writing - exactly 45 minutes long, changes when the children should be on their concluding sentence.
I put on Flight of the Bumble Bee at tidy up time.
I play restful Kenny G type stuff after playtimes and something energizing for a little bop around during that 2.30pm lull.

Not generally during working time. Too distracting.

God I'm shocked that this is commonplace.I'd better not storm in and complain then.

I don't think they should work in silence but if they are forced to listen to someone else's tastes in music every day then there should be some kind of quality threshold.

Perhaps they should bring tellies in too. I know lots of people find they can't concentrate unless they've got some fool whittering away on the telly.

Can you tell I'm having a bad day?