A plan to help ‘unloved’ music teachers
NewsWriting on The Times op-ed page today, Veronica Wadley explains how the newly unrolled National Music Plan can help music teachers who feel ‘isolated and unloved’.
… The plan is a catalyst for change, a turning point. So it is the right time to put aside the stories of gloom and doom. The Incorporated Society of Musicians’ recent report suggested music was a “subject in peril”. Frankly, many music teachers I have spoken to do not recognise this sentiment. They are making music happen in wondrous ways.
Head teachers, supported by their governors and trusts, are backing music, finding the money within their budgets, the time in their timetables and the space for lessons and rehearsals. In the plan there are wonderful examples of primary and secondary schools across the country where this is happening….
With an emphasis on inclusion, progression and excellence, the plan will help give all children that opportunity, whatever their background or circumstances. We hope to inspire young people to go to local cultural events and later consider a career in the music industry.
The plan is ambitious and not everything will happen instantly. I know that some teachers, particularly music teachers, feel isolated and unloved. But they are the ones who really do have the power to change lives. I hope the plan will help them. So, as Sir Paul McCartney would say, let’s come together and make it happen.
photo from May 2016
“Frankly, many music teachers I have spoken to do not recognise this sentiment. They are making music happen in wondrous ways.”
Presumably, that is because Wadley has spoken to *good* and enthusiastic classroom music teachers who are determined to dispel stereotypes of “music as the preserve of the privileged”. The standard of music teaching in the UK school system is extremely variable, and the mediocre/bad teachers are hardly likely to want to draw attention to themselves by talking to a prominent journalist, are they? Conversely, to a *private* music teacher working with schoolchildren on a one-to-one basis *outside* the school system, the deficiencies of their school music education are very evident.
Being an employee i have always felt isolated and
Unloved. This is nothing new.
Errrrr… This “come together” thing… Not only it has nothing to do with this subject but it was John Lennon who “said” it. No wonder this lady does not see music teaching as a subject in peril and defends that all is fine. Talk about gloom and doom!
“Frankly, many music teachers I have spoken to do not recognise this sentiment. They are making music happen in wondrous ways.”
I would be interested to know how many of these music teachers are working in the private sector…..there is a gulf in music provision between private and state sectors, and we all know why that is. Music in the state sector doesn’t attract many brownie points. Until that changes, the focus will not shift.
Recently an official reminder guideline had to be sent to all Primary schools to tell them that classroom music-teaching should be on each child’s timetable for “at least an hour per week”.. Imagine a so-called enlightened headteacher having to be told that! Teachers should continually be aware that music is a really essential and valuable source of all development – – physical, mental, emotional and social. It therefore should never be regarded as a Cinderella nuisance extra subject to be fitted in “if we can find time” (especially to children who are needy in any sense of that word)