Happy New Year!

For those of us working in education, September feels like the start of a new year and one of the things people do as a new year approaches is look back over the last year so here’s Peter Holmes’ review of 2015/16 for the music hub:

We were fortunate to have an increased investment in music education when ministers put an additional £17m into the Arts Council grant. That translated to an extra £250,000 in Gloucestershire and has enabled us to widen the offer we can make. We want all children to experience and enjoy music so we have provided support for more out of school activity, provided more opportunities for young people to write songs and perform them and supported a wide range of concerts where children can participate either through performance or active engagement with musicians. All this on top of the core work of providing whole class tuition, Saturday morning music centres and high quality orchestras and groups!

There have been some wonderful performances where young people have shown their talents; Christmas concerts, national competitions, all Gloucester secondary schools in the cathedral and a fabulous concert where children from all our special schools were able to perform. But there have also been opportunities for some young people who don’t find school easy to build their confidence through playing and performing to classmates or friends.

The hub has worked with nearly 250 of the 300 schools in Gloucestershire. We know schools value music as part of their performing arts – just look at the front cover of any school prospectus or website to see that. What we need is more encouragement for children to take their interest to the next level whether that is playing an instrument, singing or making music through technology. Of 90,000 children and young people in the county, less than 2,000 appear to be actively engaged in music outside the classroom. I say ‘appear’ because we haven’t been good at getting information – a point that the Arts Council has challenged us on.

This year, with the help of Omar Khokher (Severn Vale School) and Analie Hart (Heron Primary School), we have produced a simpler questionnaire which will be easier and less time consuming for schools to complete.  The new questionnaires can be found below:

Primary Schools Survey 2015/16

Secondary Schools Survey 2015/16

Special Schools Survey 2015/16

Guidance for completing the above surveys

Entries in these surveys are visible to all, however there are no data issues as there is no personal data included.  If you do not wish to have your information visible you can still use the original data app which can be found here www.glos.musicdatashare.org.uk/   If you need help with this survey, please contact Mark Medland

So, I hope we can share a new year’s resolution to encourage more children and young people to develop their talents and can I encourage schools to complete the return before 30th September?

Peter Holmes is Head of Access for Learning at Gloucestershire County Council.