Saving music education (again)…

It feels like almost every day recently a new campaign to ‘save’ music education has been launched by someone outside of our sector. Telling us what they think we need, successive industry figures and arts organisations have announced a flurry of initiatives that are doubtless well-meaning but often ill informed. This is highly problematic for many reasons, not least that it must be extremely confusing for the government to have multiple groups all claiming they know the fix for music education but then asking them for entirely different things!

This campaign activity is set against the backdrop of a persistent current of commentary from industry figures and arts professionals, again without significant connection to our sector, that music is ‘non-existent’ in our schools. This, I am happy to say is nonsense! The regularity with which this view is rolled out by people who have not taken the time to understand what is actually happening in schools is infuriating, and feeds into the thinking of people behind all the different campaigns, resulting in some of them asking for fixes to problems that don’t actually exist in the first place.

I have worked both as a performer and in venue management on my journey to finding my true career home in education. I am not out here asking the government for things on their behalf on the basis that I have a bit of knowledge of these areas. I don’t believe I have the right to do so, nor could I make a helpful contribution. I could guess at what some of the issues might be, and how to solve them, but I am not so arrogant as to assume that my guesswork is in any way comparable to the lived experience of people working full time in that sector. Why then, do celebrities, industry figures, and arts organisations presume to think they speak for us when they have no idea what is going on in schools?

We have three subject associations for music education, one of which the Independent Society of Musicians has always been at the forefront of well organised advocacy campaigns underpinned by both their knowledge of the sector and of how Westminster works. In the past they alongside Music Mark and the Music Teachers’ Association have spearheaded campaigns that represent the reality of what those working in our sector want and need. Anyone wanting to start their own campaign to effect change in music education would do best to consult them before ploughing ahead, out of common courtesy if nothing else!

No one is denying that music in schools continues to face significant challenges, and this is the case despite a massive amount of investment from successive governments in all kinds of initiatives and projects. However, to say that music has ‘disappeared’ from our schools, or that it ‘cannot’ be delivered under current funding circumstances is, frankly, insulting to the hard-working teachers in our schools who are quietly getting on with their jobs delivering music education to their pupils. Of course each of these teachers would have a huge list of things they’d like to change and improve, but the problem is no-one is asking them, the experts, what it is that they need.

What we haven’t seen in any of these campaigns or press commentary are the voices of real teachers. This has been irking me generally for some time so we have hatched a plan, not for another campaign (thank goodness) but for amplifying the voices of real teachers, shedding light on what is really happening in our schools. The Primary Music in Conversation Podcast will champion the work of primary music subject leaders, giving them a platform to share the work that they do and to inspire other schools with their journeys. It will shine a light on what is happening with music in primary schools across the country, sharing both challenges and successes, and allowing our teachers to speak for themselves. I hope that in some small way this will help those outside our sector gain a greater understanding of what is happening in primary schools and help us counter the narrative that music ‘has disappeared’ from our education system.

(And for those of you thinking ‘what about secondary schools,’ we decided to focus on primary initially because there are already several secondary music podcasts out there, so the voices of secondary music teachers can already be heard through these platforms. That doesn’t mean we won’t ever do a secondary version, but right now primary is where we have chosen to start!)

We will be releasing our first episode in May 2025. If you are the primary music subject leader for your school and interested in being a guest on the podcast to share your experience, please contact us. And if you’re not a music teacher, but are keen to share your opinions on what you think is happening with music in our schools, please don’t do it in the pages of a national newspaper!

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