Keeping The Beat
'Keeping the Beat' is a fantastic Resource for promoting children's early learning.
Keeping the Beat is a musical company which produces CDs of well known children’s rhymes and songs, aimed particularly at parents, early years settings and projects such as SureStart, which focus on improving children’s ability to learn.
Keeping the Beat place a particular emphasis on engaging families, particularly fathers, in children's learning, hence the songs are of the highest musical quality, so that dads can bear to listen to them over and over again! This shared time between parents and their children is hugely important, most particularly in promoting healthy emotional development, but also in terms of language development. Both of these have a massive impact on a child's learning.
Research has highlighted the fact that children with lots of experience of songs, rhymes and rhythm are better placed to succeed at school. In addition, linking music with movements, such as actions helps young children to make the connections between the left and right side of their brains, which they need in order to progress to more formal learning. Most importantly of all though, the way in which music generally enhances peoples lives and well being has been well documented.
All of these research findings have influenced Keeping the Beat's music. We place a particular emphasis on engaging boys in music and learning, hence the tunes are based on types of music that children may already be familiar with and are likely to engage with. For example, the CD includes a rap version of ‘Humpty Dumpty’, a garage version of ‘Down in the Jungle’ and a funk version of ‘Five little monkeys’!
The Keeping The Beat CD is an ideal resource for introducing children and the adults who share the CD with them into music, rhyme, rhythm and song and is already being used by SureStart programmes, schools, nurseries, childminders and parents.
The Keeping The Beat CD is currently available at the price of £10 plus £1.50 p&p per copy.
You can purchase bulk copies of Keeping the Beat’s current CD for your project, parents, schools or early years settings, at a discount. Alternatively projects can opt to have a customised CD created especially for a local area or initiative, as SureStart Downham in South East London chose to do, involving families in selecting the songs they wished to have on the CD, which gave them an immediate sense of ownership over it (See quotes below).
Please visit our website at www.keepingthebeat.co.uk for further information and to hearsamples of the CD.
Alternatively please contact us for a sample CD, or to discuss the endless possibilities which this CD can provide for developing children’s learning.
‘I think this scheme is both a fantastic and very creative way of introducing learning through music. Shared learning in this way is also extremely enjoyable and will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the learning potential of the children involved.’ - COUNCILLOR KATY DONNELLY, CABINET MEMBER FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE, LEWISHAM, LONDON (TAKEN FROM *LEWISHAM ONLINE WEB PAGE 15/11/2004)
‘When I first heard the CD I thought ‘this can’t be for little children’, it sounded too grown up, but my little boy would sing along and before you knew it all the family were singing along too – even the baby! It is truly a CD that I would recommend as it has such a lovely variety of different music for all tastes and shows the diversity of the community we live in’ - ADE, A DOWNHAM MUM, LEWISHAM, LONDON (TAKEN FROM SURESTART DOWNHAM UPDATE – MAY 2005)
‘I use the Keeping The Beat CD in my reception class all the time to support my early phonics teaching – it has been great for helping develop the children’s language and their sense of rhythm and rhyme…we even did a whole half term’s project based around it.’ - RECEPTION TEACHER, SOUTH LONDON
Youth Music
Youth Music exists to facilitate and fund high quality and diverse musical experiences for young people up to the age of 18, particularly those living in areas of social and economic need.
