WCET and Progression: challenges and opportunities

WCET Programmes and Success

The question about WCET as a recruitment tool goes right back to the 1990s when Wider Opportunities was born. A key question then, as now, was the extent to which WCET programmes should be valued as stand-alone programmes contributing to children’s general music education, or as a means of encouraging take-up of small group or individual instrumental lessons. In Martin Fautley’s extensive Research Report into Whole Class Ensemble Teaching, published in 2017 (p. 59), just over half of teachers interviewed disagreed with the statement: “Success in WCET is measured by how many children carry on playing afterwards”. The Fautley report didn’t investigate continuation rates in detail, but it is clear from the free text responses in the report that these rates vary considerably.

The new National Plan for Music Education (DfE, 2022) sets four desired outcomes for WCET, summarised as follows:

• Developing confidence and basic skills in playing an instrument
• Giving a concert at the end of the programme
• Children able to use their instrumental skills in ongoing curriculum music lessons
• Children interested in music, with greater numbers than would otherwise be the case continuing in 1:1 and small group tuition.

In my view this is a narrow and fairly impoverished view of WCET. At its best, WCET can provide a rich and varied musical experience which goes well beyond the mere development of some basic instrumental skills. Good WCET programmes are able to address all aspects of the National Curriculum – important as they take up precious curriculum time. They also provide the potential for professional development for classroom teachers, helping them to develop skills in a subject which teachers often avoid as being too difficult. I’m also not sure that this narrowing focus on basic instrumental skills is necessarily going to help us when it comes to the fourth aim – onward progression from WCET.

WCET programmes and children

Ever since the “invention” of Wider Opportunities I’ve wondered about the way children view these classes and how they see them relating to ongoing instrumental learning. This is based on hunch rather than research, but I suspect that whilst we as teachers might see a clear link between WCET programmes and ongoing learning, this link is probably much less clear for children. I suspect that the class, and classroom, nature of WCET sessions means that whilst children are learning the clarinet, violin or whatever in these programmes, they may view learning the same instrument in a small group as a very different thing. Although we might like to represent WCET as laying the ground for instrumental learning, the experience of the child in the two environments (WCET and small group lessons) is very different, and children who have enjoyed the familiar class learning in a WCET programme may be much less enthusiastic about the individual attention that small group tuition offers.

If this characterisation is halfway accurate then it might be that when we attempt to recruit children to ongoing tuition from WCET projects we are actually in a not much better position than when we go in cold. Arguably it might even be worse – the children have got used to the idea that violin, trumpet, etc. is a class activity with everyone involved and where no-one is put on the spot. When offered small group lessons they may see this as less appealing – many will not crave the individual attention that these lessons offer.

Ways forward

Wider Opportunities was originally conceived as a three-term project, something that got reduced through successive cuts in music education funding. The new NPME restates this full-year aim, as did the previous iteration, but other than suggesting that WCET should be funded from school budgets has little to offer in terms of making full year WCET a reality. Arguably in a full year project children may get to a stage where their relationship with the instrument is rather more robust and personal – “this is something that I do”. A one-term project is going to struggle to do more than provide a taster – and as mentioned earlier, a taster of something other than small group lessons!

Far from being a counsel of despair I think there are opportunities, some of which arise from the new NPME. The NPME proposes school development plans for music, a lead person for music in the school, lead schools for music and CPD – all areas that can support excellent practice in WCET. But perhaps critical is the creative thinking that goes into each hub’s local plan for music education and how this supports children to bridge the gap (sometimes a gulf) between WCET and ongoing learning.

Hubs have found many creative ways of building WCET into their offering in such a way as to encourage progression. The following are not intended to be thought-through proposals, they merely represent a few possible ways of bridging that gap between WCET and ongoing small group learning.

Full year programmes. It’s easy to say that schools should buy-in additional terms – but school funding is tight (and uneven) and such decisions depend on the enthusiasm of the head to make it a priority. Perhaps rather more robust information and marketing to heads supported by ways of making it affordable might bear fruit? Perhaps rather than a free term and paid for other terms, the whole might be wrapped into a discounted year? Can the full-year cost be reduced through the provision of resources for the classroom teacher – maybe in terms 2 and 3 the instrumental specialist visits on fewer weeks with the classroom teacher taking other lessons? Additionally, it is surely more appealing to a head teacher considering a full-year programme when this fully covers NC music outcomes for the children involved.

“Buffer” provision. Some have developed forms of provision that sit in between WCET and small group tuition. These might have similar style and content to WCET classes but perhaps be offered to “large groups” rather than full classes? It could perhaps be offered as an after school club? It might be charged for, partly subsidised, etc.

Peer support and learning. WCET programmes are quite isolated affairs and whilst many teachers bring video into the class the children seldom meet other violinists, etc. Some music services organise large events for WCET groups, but I’m never totally convinced that WCET children plucking open strings while the youth orchestra plays Star Wars is much of a musical experience! But if small events could be organised where slightly more experienced players can help and support WCET children this might help them better understand how exciting small group learning can be. Peer support can be a powerful learning tool and need not involve advanced players.

Blended Learning. When it comes to ongoing tuition do we have to be wedded to the weekly model, or does our experience with online teaching allow us to offer something which is cheaper and potentially as effective? Could face-to-face lessons be every other week with an online lesson providing support in between? If the in-between lessons were a standard asynchronous course and not delivered live then the costs are much less.

Tasters. These are a challenge because someone has to pay for them, but they present the opportunity for WCET children to get a taste of what a small group lesson feels like? For example, if a teacher could deliver an additional week at the end of the WCET project, where each child gets a lesson in a group of five for 30 mins. If it proved successful it might be worth trying to find funding for the three hours it would take the teacher to run this for a class of 30 children..

At a time when there is an increasing focus on the outcomes from WCET programmes, and when continuation is increasingly seen as a quality measure, perhaps more research and shared information on potential solutions for connecting WCET programmes with ongoing learning might be helpful.

Nick Beach, August 2022. Copyright © 2022 Music Education Solutions Limited. All Rights Reserved

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