Making sense of Lead Schools in the NPME

As the new Hub Leadership Organisations (HLOs) turn their minds to September, one of the most pressing issues is that of the appointment of Lead Schools. Each HLO is expected to appoint at least two ‘Lead Schools’, a primary and a secondary, per local authority area that the hub covers. They also have freedom to appoint specialist lead schools, for example special schools or alternative provision.

Lead Schools are to be given the role of supporting other schools in their area to improve their music provision through initiatives such as networks, CPD, mentoring, peer support, collaborative projects etc. These are many of the roles that hubs have already been delivering themselves, but the perceived advantage of having schools take on responsibility for these appears to be that schools are better placed to understand current challenges and opportunities within local schools.

While I welcome the idea of schools becoming more equal partners in music hubs – there has been for too long in many regions a feeling of schools having things ‘done to’ them by hubs rather than being viewed as expert co-creators of music education – I question whether the Lead Schools idea is really going to create a better outcome than hubs carrying out this work themselves?

Schools these days are all very different. A local authority music advisor (remember those!) or a Hub school development partner, whose sole job is to support all or almost all schools in their area is surely better placed to develop an understanding of what “all schools need” than someone from a school who, presumably, will also have nearly full-time teaching responsibilities and be very rooted in their own practice? But more than that, an advisor or partner from the LA or the Hub does not have skin in the game in the same way as a school does. For better or worse, our capitalist education system now runs on competition. Schools compete against one another for pupils, and with a falling birth rate this competition is only going to get fiercer as time goes on.

What is the significance of this in terms of lead schools? Well, some schools may want to become Lead Schools to give themselves a competitive advantage over the other schools that they are meant to be supporting. That’s not to say of course that the support won’t be forthcoming – although that is certainly a possibility – but there is also an issue of the psychology and optics around other schools accepting the support of their competitors to be considered. Schools within academy chains, for example, are unlikely to even be allowed to accept the support of a school outside their own brand, and many schools for a whole host of reasons simply will not work with other schools, whereas they would feel comfortable accepting the support of the hub. This fact needs to be taken account of and provided for to ensure that all schools in the hub area have access to support with their music.

There’s also the issue that music in schools is often very personality driven. A brilliant, highly expert, and passionate teacher can turn a music department around through sheer force of will; but that doesn’t mean this is scalable or replicable in other schools. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen teachers promoting the ‘just do it like me’ approach with seemingly little understanding that not everyone is like them. Supporting other teachers is a particular skill, and just because you are a brilliant music teacher yourself, does not necessarily mean that you are the right person to help other teachers develop their own practice. Of course we would hope that in expressing an interest to become a Lead School, there might be consideration of whether the right people were in post to lead this kind of peer-to-peer development work, but the criteria set out by Arts Council England (ACE) in the Lead Schools for Music document is very much more focused on the school’s own achievement in music, and in particular how it aligns with government policy…

Schools with strong music often have a Head Teacher and/or SLT who are engaged with and supportive of music. If you don’t have that particular type of leadership in your school, you won’t be able to mimic the approach of a school that does. Yes, a Lead School could definitely have peer conversations about the importance of music with another school’s SLT, but with so many other priorities that Head Teachers have to choose between, if the outcome of that conversation is unsuccessful you would need to know how to develop music in a school without the support of SLT. If your only experience is working in a school where everyone is supportive, will you have the skills and experience necessary to help in this very different situation?

At the National Plan for Music Education Conference back in 2022, teachers expressed a variety of concerns similar to the above regarding the appointment of Lead Schools, but one that stuck with me most was a teacher who told me a version of the following. They came from a primary school in a really deprived area where the pupils ‘had nothing’ and were doing everything they could to improve their quality of life. There were no music specialists in the school, and behaviour was really tough so often the teachers felt that practical subjects such as music were a step too far in terms of ensuring a safe and secure classroom environment, so they didn’t get taught. They reached out for support to their hub, who put them in touch with a school a few miles away in an affluent area where the provision was ‘brilliant’. They went to visit and were shown around a purpose-built music room, by one of two music specialist staff members, told how many children were learning instruments (funded by parents), shown all the resources that the PTA had purchased, and told ‘if we can do it then anyone can.’ On returning to their car, they sat in the car park and cried.

This is my big concern about the Lead Schools idea. I wholeheartedly agree that there is a great deal of expertise in our schools, and that colleagues with relevant and recent teaching experience are very well placed to support one another. However, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to improving music in schools, and I think a better system would be for hubs to have a directory of schools that they can point others to as and when requests for support come in. So rather than it being ‘so and so is the lead school for your LA, talk to them’ it might become ‘there’s a school in one of the other LAs with a very similar profile to yours, I’ll put you in touch.’

Maybe this will happen organically (after all, many hubs have been doing this informally for the last 10 years or so!) but I worry about local authority borders becoming unofficial boundaries, particularly where maintained schools are concerned. Surely the idea of having different lead schools for each LA undermines the idea of the joining up of provision and partnership working that the hub restructure was meant to be promoting? It could also result in all the Lead Schools for the entire hub area being very ‘samey’ when what you would want is schools with lots of different contexts; specialist provision, non-specialist provision, different socio-economic circumstances, different musical foci, rural schools urban schools, and so on. Although I suppose there is nothing stopping hubs selecting lots of additional Lead Schools to get this breadth. Well, nothing except that I also, as ever, wonder where the money is coming from to ‘provide remuneration or support in kind for Lead Schools.’

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