The context
The David Ross Education Trust (DRET) is a network of 34 schools – 22 primary schools, 11 secondary schools and one special school. This represents over 1,000 teachers and 13,500 students. Music education and extra-curricular enrichment activities are at the core of every school across the Trust.
As in so many schools, diversity is both a strength and a challenge. DRET wanted to draw together the strengths from the 11 secondary music departments and bring a higher, more equal standard of music education to every school. To facilitate this, DRET recruited an executive director of music: Simon Toyne. He was tasked to analyse each school and find the best ways for the Trust's schools to work together for mutual benefit. DRET has now established a reputation for its strategic development of the quality and scope of music making for thousands of young people. Their strategy is designed to enable music to be an integral part of the Trust's vision to transform young people's lives.
The challenge
There was a strong drive to find ways for disparate schools to share similar experiences to make sure the opportunities offered would be for all students across the Trust, no matter which school they attended. DRET wanted students in one school to make as much progress in music as those in another – not just in the variety of opportunities outside of the classroom, but within it to the same extent. The DRET team aimed to equip both teachers and students with the tools to make the most of every lesson, and beyond.
In 2018, DRET invested in MusicFirst on a medium-sized scale, but when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it was soon clear that a remote learning solution across the board was essential to continue to deliver high-quality teaching and a full timetable. Simon Toyne and his team, led by Alex Green (secondary lead for music), needed to develop a strategy quickly – not only to fulfil this brief, but as future-proofing for all the schools. With a year's experience using the MusicFirst Classroom on a smaller scale, it was clear that expanding this was the natural next step.
The solution
In 2020, the MusicFirst Classroom – including the software Soundtrap for Education, Noteflight Learn, and Focus on Sound – was rolled out across Key Stage 3 and GCSE in all 11 secondary schools.
Green has overseen the implementation of the MusicFirst Classroom across the Trust. He has had direct input in organising the curriculum content and, along with Toyne, has supported the music teachers as they incorporated the software across their teaching of music. Green describes MusicFirst as a ‘strategic investment’ and underlines the importance of giving access to ‘high-quality software, that is cloud-based, in every single classroom across the Trust’.
The impact
Lindsey Gardner, one of the music teachers at Malcolm Arnold Academy, now has MusicFirst embedded into all her teaching and the student learning. She says, ‘MusicFirst is totally part of our curriculum now. [The students] have access at home and at school, so whatever they've started at school they can continue at home or create their own projects, separate to what has been done in school.’
It is clear that using the platform and software has had a big impact on the students at Malcolm Arnold Academy. They describe doing their homework with enthusiasm, and how using technology in music makes things so much easier, including in situations where face-to-face teaching is impossible.
Green describes some of the benefits that he has seen across the Trust: ‘Our students are now able to compose at home, arrange their own work, record ideas, capture them, and share them with each other using the collaboration element. The feedback element has been the most powerful for us. Students are now able to get very specific, quick, short feedback from their teachers. The quizzes are all auto-marked, so we can very quickly see a snapshot of how students are progressing using MusicFirst.’
Summary
- All students can learn, compose, explore – anytime, anywhere, on any device
- Students can collaborate with each other on projects
- Teachers have far more scope for assessment
- Trust-wide visibility of student performance
- Future-proof platform for delivering remote or blended learning
- More enthusiastic, engaged students, influencing their overall musicianship.
‘I can whole-heartedly recommend the MusicFirst program. I've seen the change that it's brought in our students. I've seen much increased motivation as a result of being able to engage in music outside the classroom, at home, as independent students, as musicians. The fact that we're now giving students the tools to be musicians is such a powerful message that we can send them.’– Simon Toyne, executive director of music, DRET
To learn more about MusicFirst's cloud-based product portfolio, visit www.musicfirst.co.uk.
