Shaking things up: Exchanging Notes project

Victoria Kinsella is a senior research fellow in creativities at Birmingham City University's (BCU) School of Education and Social Work.

I was the principal investigator on the project, leading a team which was committed to evaluating Exchanging Notes (EN). We employed a research lens to the projects that were happening across the country, working with them to gather data. We held numerous reflection sessions with them over the four years to think about what they were doing and how to progress the programme.

Youth Music, which funded the four-year programme, wanted to examine the impact of the project on young people's educational progress and attainment, and really explore the notion of what a new model of partnership between schools and out-of-school music providers might look like. Before EN, it had conducted a research project called Communities of Music Education, which found that schools and out-of-school music providers needed to join up more. They wanted a research base which really supported projects over the four years and to then have some evidence to disseminate the work more widely and to have impact on policy and practice.