TM: Can you introduce yourself to us?
DW: I’ve been in my current role – a primary music teacher – for 11 years in a two-form inner London primary school. Prior to this I worked in other schools and have done peripatetic work in music services across a few boroughs. I was a musician first before I became a teacher, and my background is mainly in jazz.
TM: What do you enjoy most about your job?
DW: In general, it’s such a privilege to work every day with young people. They are interesting and surprise me in ways I never expect. It’s fantastic to work with them, making music every day and enriching their lives.
TM: What is one of the challenges of working in your role?
DW: It’s difficult when, compared to other teachers, you don’t have a partner teacher you can talk to at the end of the day and discuss how a lesson went. You don’t have someone you can compare strategies with. Of course, you’re all teaching the same children, but there’s no-one teaching anything remotely like you. It can be a very lonely role.
TM: What solutions are there to combat this feeling of isolation in your place of work?
DW: I am fortunate to work in a borough with a strong tradition of quality music teaching that goes back decades, across many schools. It means we have communities, families and governors who value music and give it the time, prominence, space and funding it needs. We have a strong network of impressive, capable and inspiring music leads in the borough, who help bring people together. This network lets us see what wonderful things are happening in other schools and be inspired by them.
This network also allows us to complain to each other, which is really important. Sometimes we just need a space to vent after a difficult lesson. Hearing innovative ways around problems is so useful because when we’re stuck in our own little bubbles, we can end up reinventing the wheel.
TM: What does good collaboration and the sharing of best practice among teachers look like?
DW: What works well in our borough at the moment is having both formal and informal strands for sharing best practice. These combine really well. Our music leads’ WhatsApp group is a great way to receive immediate feedback and share successes, tips and suggestions as well as complain and laugh about the crazy job we do! It also helps that we have termly music leader forums organised by the music service as formal CPD.
It’s useful having our annual borough-wide concerts for primary and secondary schools because you get to see what’s happening in the school next door, and it can inspire you for your next lessons and ensembles. It shows what’s possible, and it doesn’t have to be competitive. We do very well at celebrating each other’s successes, but it’s great to have ideas to steal too.
TM: Can you share an example of a successful collaborative project you’ve been involved in?
DW: For the past few years, I’ve been part of the team that puts together the repertoire for our borough’s annual singing festivals. Each time, it involves experienced teachers from a variety of phases and settings throwing out ideas for songs. Being in an unstructured environment where we can listen to and discuss songs and the approaches to teaching them is incredibly useful.
TM: What advice would you give a music teacher who is feeling isolated in their school? How can they go about finding community?
DW: My first suggestion would be to talk to your local music service. Ask who they think is an example of brilliant practice and ask to be put in touch. When I started, I convinced management to give me time to watch some excellent teachers in successful schools to benchmark what great school music could look like.
Secondly, engage with events and keep up the connections you make there. Our network started with a few music teachers who attended a music event organised by the music service. We would meet every so often to learn music together or share an online resource and work through it. Every time I met someone new, I’d let them know the group was available to them. If you see a gap, sometimes you need to be the one to fill it.
