Provide Funding For A Specialist Music Teacher in every Primary School

[maracas]

We have a new Cabinet. Let's make them sort out music education in our country. I feel heartbroken when I compare the music lessons I had at school with what they don't have at my daughter's school. Music teaches us to listen to each other, helps us to make friends, helps us do better in other subjects, gives us a life-long gift of enjoyment. I know you are tired of signing petitions but I think this one could make a big difference to many people's lives.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/156832

I entirely agree about the sorry state of music education, though it is still possible to find some excellent examples this is the exception not the rule, and cuts to local authorities are likely to make life much much harder for specialist music hubs whose job it is to provide this specialism. There are some fantastic music hubs (such as mine in Suffolk) providing services to schools (including whole class instrumental tuition in year 4/5), there are also very many schools who have not seen the value of providing music and other creative arts and feel obliged to do yet more maths and literacy without finding other more creative ways to teach these skills. There is a great deal of research about the benefits of music and other creative arts for helping children engage in learning, feel positive about themselves, and also (in the case of music anyway which is my subject) how learning music can help with cognitive skills, including maths. However, I don't think the answer lies just with encouraging primary schools to bring in specialists. Instead I think primary school teachers should be encouraged and supported to sing with their classes in particular (singing is free and there are masses of excellent resources to help the non-music specialist). Interestingly Michael Gove (who otherwise in my view did much to damage education) led a music education review - the Henley Review - which concluded (amongst other things) that better teaching of 'how to do music' in primary teacher training was the way forward. If class teachers feel more skilled and confident about doing music they are more likely to get to see the benefits and to then support and lead on getting other music opportunities to their schools. All of which is a long way of saying I'd like the priority for the new govt in this area to be implementing the findings of the Henley Review.

I entirely agree about the sorry state of music education, though it is still possible to find some excellent examples this is the exception not the rule, and cuts to local authorities are likely to make life much much harder for specialist music hubs whose job it is to provide this specialism. There are some fantastic music hubs (such as mine in Suffolk) providing services to schools (including whole class instrumental tuition in year 4/5), there are also very many schools who have not seen the value of providing music and other creative arts and feel obliged to do yet more maths and literacy without finding other more creative ways to teach these skills. There is a great deal of research about the benefits of music and other creative arts for helping children engage in learning, feel positive about themselves, and also (in the case of music anyway which is my subject) how learning music can help with cognitive skills, including maths. However, I don't think the answer lies just with encouraging primary schools to bring in specialists. Instead I think primary school teachers should be encouraged and supported to sing with their classes in particular (singing is free and there are masses of excellent resources to help the non-music specialist). Interestingly Michael Gove (who otherwise in my view did much to damage education) led a music education review - the Henley Review - which concluded (amongst other things) that better teaching of 'how to do music' in primary teacher training was the way forward. If class teachers feel more skilled and confident about doing music they are more likely to get to see the benefits and to then support and lead on getting other music opportunities to their schools. All of which is a long way of saying I'd like the priority for the new govt in this area to be implementing the findings of the Henley Review.