Henley Music Education Review

Schools should provide children with a broad Music Education, which includes performing, composing, listening, reviewing and evaluating

The Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport should work together to develop a national plan for Music Education in England (The National Music Plan).

Ofsted’s remit should be expanded to include the reviewing of standards in Music Education provided in schools by Local Authority Music Services, Arts Council England client organisations or other recognised music delivery organisations. The focus for Ofsted’s work in this area should be on the quality of teaching, leadership and management, with the aim of raising standards and increasing levels of achievement among pupils.

Arts Council England should fund its client organisations to deliver Music Education programmes in accordance with the National Music Plan. All of these programmes should operate under the same quality framework, inspected by Ofsted.

Music Education in school and out of school should continue to be funded through a mixed economic model. This should include ring-fenced funding from central government, funding from Arts Council England, funding from Local Authorities, funding from the National Lottery and through fees from parents. In addition, it is anticipated that funding will also come for national and local projects from private sources, including charities and foundations and through sponsorship from industry and from philanthropists.

Schools, Local Authority Music Services, Arts Council England client organisations and other recognised delivery organisations should work together to create Music Education Hubs in each Local Authority area. These Hubs should receive ring-fenced central government funding to deliver Music Education in each area following an open, advertised bidding process. It is anticipated that there would be a lead organisation (which is likely to be a Local Authority Music Service in almost all cases, but in some cases could also be an Arts Council England client organisation or other recognised delivery organisation). This lead organisation would be directly funded to undertake the leading role in each Hub. The Department for Education should ensure that public funds are invested to provide the highest quality Music Education for children and young people efficiently and with the greatest accountability for the money spent.

All partner organisations working together in Music Education Hubs should be encouraged to make back office cost savings. It may also be possible to make savings across a number of local areas through the development of wider partnerships. This could include the merger of senior management and support functions over a number of Local Authority areas. It may also be appropriate for particularly successful Local Authority Music Services to undertake to offer Music Education provision in neighbouring areas.

Currently, musical instruments are purchased on an ad hoc basis by music services and schools. This should be replaced by one centralised national purchasing system, building on the recommendations of Sir Philip Green in his recent report to the Cabinet Office about government procurement.

Youth Music should operate under a set of tightly targeted objectives, defined and monitored by the Department for Education, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England. Its administration costs should be in line with other lottery distributors and, like these other bodies, Youth Music should be prevented from spending any government or lottery funds on lobbying and public affairs activities.

Youth Music should be required to maintain the central resources of the Sing Up programme (the Song Bank and website), which should be made available to schools to use on an on-going basis. Funding for the four year Sing Up initiative has always been scheduled to end in March 2011. However, as part of the transition funding in the 2011-12 financial year, a slimmed-down Sing Up should receive some funding to help it to ensure that the legacy of the initial four years of investment remains in place.

Both Arts Council England and Youth Music may wish to examine the possibility of supporting an In Harmony style model moving forwards, perhaps through the development of a standalone charitable trust. Although In Harmony is an expensive initiative, early evidence suggests that whole school provision in a single school with a single lead cultural organisation creates radical improvements in educational attainment for the children involved. It is recommended that existing projects be funded for a further transition year against the membership criteria currently being developed by the Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. If these projects fail to meet the minimum criteria, they should not receive further public funds.

Singing should be an important part of every child’s school life from Early Years through until at least Key Stage 3.

The Music and Dance Scheme and the National Youth Music Organisations should continue to receive funding from the Department for Education, from Arts Council England and from Youth Music. We should acknowledge their role in showcasing the high level of talent that our Music Education system can foster. The public funding for these organisations from the Department for Education, Arts Council England and Youth Music should be directed towards developing young people's musical performance to the highest level. Gaining a place in one of our National Youth Music ensembles is a considerable achievement both for the young person concerned and for the teachers who have helped them to get there. It should be celebrated as such. Given the considerable investment in the Music and Dance Scheme, the Department for Education should ensure that this continues to offer the best possible value for money.

Much primary school classroom teaching of music is provided by non-specialist teachers. The amount of time dedicated to music in most Initial Teacher Training courses is inadequate to create a workforce that is confident in its own ability to teach the subject in the classroom. It is recommended that a new minimum number of hours of ITT for primary music teachers be spent on the delivery of Music Education.

All primary schools should have access to a specialist music teacher.

Secondary school music teachers should be allowed the time to work closely with their local Music Education Hubs and feeder primaries.

A new qualification should be developed for music educators, which would professionalise and acknowledge their role in and out of school. Primarily delivered through in-post training and continuous professional development, musicians who gain this new qualification would be regarded as Qualified Music Educators. It would be as applicable to peripatetic music teachers as it would be to orchestral musicians who carry out Music Education as part of their working lives.

Conservatoires should be recognised as playing a greater part in the development of a performance-led Music Education workforce of the future. All graduates from Conservatoires should study the necessary components within their undergraduate courses to enable them to leave with the Qualified Music Educator award.

The Conservatoires should work with Teach First to create a Teach Music First programme, which enables our best musicians to spend two years teaching in schools before they move onto their performance career.

Leadership training among the Music Education workforce is at best patchy. It is recommended that a credible and experienced management training provider be commissioned to provide a nationwide management development scheme targeted specifically at music educators.

All music teachers should be encouraged to register on a national database, which allows them to use a kite mark. This would provide parents with a base-level of quality assurance.

The existing place of graded examinations in school performance tables should be better communicated to pupils, parents, schools, Further and Higher Education providers and employers.

All children at Key Stage 2 should have the opportunity to learn an instrument through whole class ensemble teaching. Ideally, this would be for a period of one year, but at the barest minimum, one term of weekly tuition should be offered.

To make it easier for parents to understand the full breadth of music-making opportunities for their children, schools should be encouraged to use their websites to communicate to parents and carers the totality of Music Education opportunities in their local area.

Arts Council England’s Take It Away scheme, which provides loans for the purchase of instruments, should continue. However, it should be focused on providing loans for those in full-time education of any age.

It is recommended that the Department for Education examines how learning from the Sing Up and In Harmony projects might be developed as a model for narrowing the gap in attainment through the use of the pupil premium.

As part of the National Music Plan, further work should be undertaken to develop a national plan for the use of technology in the delivery of Music Education – and to ensure that the workforce is up-to-date with latest developments. This review should examine how technology could enable better teaching of music (particularly in rural communities) as well as ways in which new methods of creating music that embrace technological innovation are taught in the classroom.

The Music Education world is fragmented and uncoordinated. There are too many organisations that have overlapping areas of interest. These organisations need to join together to create one single body.

A review of charitable organisations working in the Music Education sector should be undertaken with the aim of ensuring that money donated to these charities is being spent in the most efficient and effective way.

As suggested in the recent White Paper, ‘The Importance of Teaching’, it is recommended that the lessons from this Review be applied to other areas of Cultural Education including Dance, Drama, Film, the Visual Arts, Museums, the Built Environment and Heritage.

There should be a clear progression route for children after the initial free opportunity for instrumental tuition is made available. This route would be means tested, with parents above an agreed income level expected to fund, or part fund, tuition.

Music should continue to be offered by schools at Key Stage 4 and beyond, allowing pupils to gain GCSE, BTEC and A level qualifications in the subject.

Schools should facilitate live music making opportunities and performances for children and young people. Arts Council England funded organisations and other recognised Music Education organisations should be encouraged to play a meaningful role in providing these opportunities, however they should link more closely to curriculum objectives

Beyond the classroom, children should have the opportunity to take part in vocal and instrumental ensembles. These should either be offered in schools or by bringing pupils together from schools in a wider locality.

The best model for Music Education includes a combination of classroom teaching, instrumental and vocal music tuition and input from professional musicians. Partnership between organisations is the key to success.

The provision of Music Education should remain a statutory requirement as part of the National Curriculum.