School Music - Fighting the cuts

[Dave2002]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47485240

Who's going to spot the devious nature of this?

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "Arts education programmes receive more money than any subject other than PE - nearly half a billion pounds to fund a range of music and cultural programmes between 2016 and 2020.

"This money is in addition to the funding that schools receive to deliver the curriculum."

[MrGongGong]

This doesn't help either

https://www.tes.com/news/music-concerns-raised-exam-board-awarded-curriculum-contract

Jon Savage KNOWS what he is talking about, I know that's not fashionable these days but how about people listen to those who DO know stuff?

https://www2.mmu.ac.uk/education/about-us/news/story/?id=9345

[Dave2002]

I"m not up to date on this. Is music in or out of the curriculum these days? Or is it "in" with the weasel words "optional"?
I get the feeling that there isn't really a curriculum for music which is viable, nor any intention that there should be - but perhaps that's too cynical.

While the AB grade exams may suit some students, they are not going to provide the kind of stimulus for music education which it seems to me is really appropriate. Are they going to have a syllabus for Rap, for example? (and that probably shows my age, as I'm guessing that Rap has gone out of fashion .... )

[Stanfordian]

I honestly didn't know that music was still part of a school curriculum in the state sector. I think the premise 'fighting the cuts' is 20 years too late. There are far too many other things thought more important to spend scarce money on.

[Dave2002]

I honestly didn't know that music was still part of a school curriculum in the state sector.

I thought it was out - but then, what do I know?

[MrGongGong]

Music is still (just) part of the National Curriculum
BUT "free schools", "Independent schools" and "academies" don't have to take any notice of that (nor do they all have to empliy qualified teachers )

https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=19&ved=2ahUKEwi9uYjqt_XgAhVBSxUIHeHWBGIQFjASegQIKRAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fresearchbriefings.files.parliament.uk%2Fdocuments%2FSN06798%2FSN06798.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0j43GqoC0o-OSdsW1_hQiZ

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Music is a statutory subject from KSs1-3 (in other words, Primary Scools and Secondary up to age 14).

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum

These are the statutory programmes of study and attainment targets for music at key stages 1 to 3. They are issued by law; you must follow them unless there’s a good reason not to.

Thereafter, Music (like all Creative subjects) is dropped from the compulsory subjects: it's necessary for 14yr & older kids to learn the three areas of Science, a(nother) language, English and Maths - but we don't think it's necessary to foster creative thinking. (And, because it's not "necessary", kids who have an interest in a creative subject, such as Music, but aren't going to pursue that interest in their careers, are pushed away from these subjects - "keep it up as a hobby" Teacher Advisor advises - making them financially unrealistic to run, so that the few "specialist" kids have to be taught by "unofficially" by the Music (or Art, or Drama, or Dance) Teacher in that Teacher's own time, and at his/her own volition. Or the kid doesn't get to study such subjects at all.

Instrumental tuition? (Dissolves into hysterical laughter and retires to take medication in between uncontrollable sobs.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Music is still (just) part of the National Curriculum
BUT "free schools", "Independent schools" and "academies" don't have to take any notice of that (nor do they all have to empliy qualified teachers )

https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum

Snap!

(One can clean the tears off one's sadface with all this flannel.)

[Dave2002]

Music is still (just) part of the National Curriculum
BUT "free schools", "Independent schools" and "academies" don't have to take any notice of that (nor do they all have to empliy qualified teachers )

https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...0o-OSdsW1_hQiZ

Though in some cases some schools not in the state "funded" system may be able to afford and provide much better musical education. However, how many people can afford to send their children to St Pauls or Westminster? Added to which some of those schools are highly selective - https://www.stpaulsschool.org.uk/admissions

https://www.westminster.org.uk/

Looking at the curriculum as it is at the moment

Pupils should be taught to: play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression  improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory use and understand staff and other musical notations appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians develop an understanding of the history of music.

Key Stage 2

Pupils should be taught to: play and perform confidently in a range of solo and ensemble contexts using their voice, playing instruments musically, fluently and with accuracy and expression  improvise and compose; and extend and develop musical ideas by drawing on a range of musical structures, styles, genres and traditions use staff and other relevant notations appropriately and accurately in a range of musical styles, genres and traditions identify and use the inter-related dimensions of music expressively and with increasing sophistication, including use of tonalities, different types of scales and other musical devices listen with increasing discrimination to a wide range of music from great composersand musicians develop a deepening understanding of the music that they perform and to which they listen, and its history.

Key Stage 3

there doesn't seem to be too much wrong with the broad brush aims - Stage 3 has a few additional words thrown in to make it look "deeper" - such as "confidently", "increasing discrimination," "deepening understanding" ...

Some schools are "losing" music teachers, though with an assumption that there is at least one other teacher who knows "something" about music - or perhaps can play an instrument - which is not the same as having a qualifed music teacher. There really are staff shortages due to budget constraints, whatever HMG says.

[Keraulophone]

As I write, I am watching and listening to the University of York Symphony Orchestra play Mahler 9 live via YT. Just as I was thinking how uninspirational the conductor was, my mind’s eye having a view of Bernstein or Abbado in full emotional flood, I wondered how these musicians, paying uni fees of £9000+ p.a., arrived at this place and time.

The baritone soloist in some Alma Mahler songs that I’d tuned in too late to hear had been an outstanding head chorister at Truro Cathedral. Today’s cathedral choristers are educated at Truro School, an independent co-educational Methodist ex-direct grant secondary school plus prep and pre-prep school, where I taught (a non-music subject) for almost my entire career. Although, at 850 at its peak, largish for a private school, it has only ever employed a maximum of 2.5 music staff out of a total academic staff of around 80, excluding an abundance of local peripatetic instrumental and vocal teachers who are self-employed. Compare this ratio to that of better-known Public Schools upcountry. This was the sole HMC School in Cornwall (until joined recently by Truro High School for Girls), one of the poorest counties of the U.K. by GDP p.c. which has qualified for the highest level of EU Structural Funding over decades. For this reason, and due to its Methodist ethos, the school has always been careful to offer places at the lowest workable fees and with the highest amount of financial support, particularly since the abolition of the Assisted Place scheme by a labour government. A few years ago, it entered the Sunday Times Top 50 Best Value list of independent schools judged by the ratio of fees to good A-level results.

It is easy for outsiders to criticise the independent educational sector, but in my experience, if it hadn’t been for the dedication of these teachers, both on the permanent staff and local peris, who are paid no more than those in the state sector (though terms are shorter, it must be said), far fewer Cornish musicians would have emerged in the last forty years, the period of my teaching and earlyish retirement here. The school has stepped in to provide leadership and a base for the newly established Cornwall Music Trust, replacing the almost defunct and penniless Cornwall Music Service by re-engaging most of the peris that were sacked by the state ‘Service’. Although cathedral choristers benefit from a nominal 25% discount on fees (and school staff enjoy a generous 2/3 discount - Mrs K works in the Prep) some have been awarded close to full-fee means-tested bursaries on the recommendation of the cathedral’s Director of Music, who clearly has the full support of a visionary and community-minded headmaster.

When our DoM looked into adding girl choristers to the cathedral choir, an obvious option, as followed elsewhere, was to invite all local schools to put forward proposals for the project. None of the local state schools had the time, funds, staffing or inclination to offer anything at all. Their disinterest, IMV, was resounding. Truro School (which has retained a small boarding facility), and Polwhele House, the existing (day-only) prep school where the boys had been educated, were the only effective participants in the discussions. After the decision was made to create a 13-18 year-old girl contingent, partly to avoid competition with boys’ places at PH, an awkward period ensued in which the boys and girls were based in different schools, but for a variety of reasons they have now virtually all moved over to TS.

And so back to York, whence the orchestral playing in Mahler 9 is a disappearing memory - yes, that quickly. Of course, it wouldn’t have been had I tuned in in time to hear the Alma Mahler songs sung by my ex-chorister friend. (I’ll need to LA - that’s Listen Again BTW [by the way].) He happens to have developed a superb adult singing voice; not all ex-choristers do. Vocal ability such as he is blest with is almost by definition an elite trait; his parents may have paid for extra singing lessons through his teens, they may themselves be musical, bringing him up surrounded by the sounds of the gramophone, the piano in the hallway, a sister’s scratchy violin practice or the wheesing old harmonium gladly given away by the nearby chapel; but most who travel on such a journey inevitably fall by the wayside, even into Schumann’s Wayside Inn. Luckily, we have the excellent Old Ale House in Truro, where ancient choristers can often be found musing on past glories and toasting their children’s potential futures.

‘Choose your parents wisely’, but if your lot is unsatisfactory, on reaching a proper age, arise and seek a better one. Opportunities are out there, but try to act as soon as the scales fall from your eyes.

[DracoM]

<< It is easy for outsiders to criticise the independent educational sector, but in my experience, if it hadn’t been for the dedication of these teachers, both on the permanent staff and local peris, who are paid no more than those in the state sector (though terms are shorter, it must be said), far fewer Cornish musicians would have emerged in the last forty years, the period of my teaching and earlyish retirement here. >>

Seriously well put.

I wish this was not so, but it is. My local state school [well, 'academy'] cannot afford to take any students anywhere near a live music of any kind venue because as a rural Northern school, it is miles from anywhere and the cost of hiring a transit to take 10 there and back just once would wipe out the Music budget for 6 months.

And it is NOT just in the 'classical' field: think how many major rock bands grew from independent school roots too? Music that enriches lives.

Instead, let's talk how Scandinavia funds and promotes Music, please?

[MrGongGong]

Instead, let's talk how Scandinavia funds and promotes Music, please?

YUP
But no-one in change is really interested I'm afraid
Politicians like to talk about Scandinavian education BUT aren't prepared for the social changes that make it possible (school starting age etc)
What struck me when I've worked in Finland is that there is NO "private" sector, so when you go to the sauna/swimming pool you go to the same one as everyone else NOT the "public" one because you are too poor to afford to pay.

The considerable resources, skills, experience and energy that Keraulophone talks about are completely lost to the vast majority of youngsters.
What Lincoln cathedral have done with their choir is interesting though.

[Keraulophone]

What Lincoln cathedral have done with their choir is interesting though.

Are you able to enlarge on the background to this development?

I had a look on the Lincoln Cathedral website, which states that their 19 girls and 19 boys go to nine local schools in addition to Lincoln Minster School. They seem to have a luxurious list of organists on their pay-roll: Director of Music, the Assistant Director, the Organist Laureate and an Assistant Organist. Whether there's also an Organ Scholar, I'm not sure. Presumably, costs are shared between the cathedral and LMS, maybe with others chipping in. The cathedral's DoM was, and possibly still is, LMS's DoM [enough acronyms - ed].

(This arose out of the Organist Laureate's wish to step down from the No.1 position but remain as an (extremely brilliant) organist, a switch that has ocurred elsewhere, such as at Norwich Cathedral. After acrimonious litigation, the post of OL was specially created for the former No.1 to allow him to accompany the choir as well as pursue a recital career from a base in the cathedral.)

[MrGongGong]

Are you able to enlarge on the background to this development?

What I know about it (from parents and some of the singers) is that instead of all the choir going to the Minster School many of them go to local schools. They are picked up in the morning and after choir practice get taken to their school, at the end of the day they are picked up again and taken back to the Cathedral where they have tea and sing evensong, then (I think but not 100% sure of the precise travel logistics !) get taken home.
This means that the demographic of the choir has changed, it also means that the Cathedral is REALLY interacting and sharing its expertise with the wider community which includes active involvement in the schools where the choristers attend.

I did a project last year that involved some of the schools taking part and it did seem to be working in an interesting way, it also meant that we had access to the Cathedral for our event (with 5 schools playing the music they had composed).

There is probably more online about the details somewhere (or someone will pop along in a while who sings there )

[Dave2002]

It is easy for outsiders to criticise the independent educational sector, but in my experience, if it hadn’t been for the dedication of these teachers, both on the permanent staff and local peris, who are paid no more than those in the state sector (though terms are shorter, it must be said), far fewer Cornish musicians would have emerged in the last forty years, the period of my teaching and earlyish retirement here. The school has stepped in to provide leadership and a base for the newly established Cornwall Music Trust, replacing the almost defunct and penniless Cornwall Music Service by re-engaging most of the peris that were sacked by the state ‘Service’. Although cathedral choristers benefit from a nominal 25% discount on fees (and school staff enjoy a generous 2/3 discount - Mrs K works in the Prep) some have been awarded close to full-fee means-tested bursaries on the recommendation of the cathedral’s Director of Music, who clearly has the full support of a visionary and community-minded headmaster.

You presumably know quite well the financial state of some teachers in the private sector. However, I feel that often there are attractions for teachers in working in the private sector. Sometimes they get subsidised accommodation, and sometimes they do earn more than teachers in state schools. Further, and this could be un PC - but possibly the students may be more able or more enthusiastic because of the admissions procedures which independent schools are able to apply. It doesn't follow that all students in private schools are motivated, but there may be a better chance than in some state schools.

Trying to teach students who are unmotivated is very demoralising. Some teachers are brilliant at changing this, but otherwise I suspect their jobs can be rather unrewarding.

If there isn't a supportive environment for both teachers and students, all of them can become very unmotivated. Some teachers in state schools are doing a great job, and some are simply losing theirs.