The National Centre for Social Research has been asked to evaluate the music education hubs programme and associated funding. That evaluation involves interviewing hub staff about their experience of providing support before September 2024, including:
- The running, delivery and impact of music education hubs before September 2024
- The different kinds of support music education hubs provided
- What worked well and less well with providing support.
This article represents the perspective of someone who was involved in much of the work in the run up to the music education hubs programme, before it launched, and who led the music hub in Croydon until the end of April 2024.
Framework
With the launch of the formal Music Hub Investment Programme, as it became known, national leadership of music education in England was taken out of the hands of music education specialists when Richard Hallam left his DfE role as National Music Education Grant Director in 2012. Instead, the national leadership passed to Arts Council England.
Since then, accountability for funding has focused on a single output – participation – alongside bureaucratic structures to ensure compliance with a view of music education frozen in time in 2011. The programme’s impact has been measured by the outputs of what is happening, not on the difference it makes to children and young people. Can you imagine an Ofsted report on a school being based on how many lessons were taught? That bureaucracy and accountability framework have stifled innovation and progress.
As an example, take the Wider Opportunities initiative, which became better known as Whole Class Ensemble Teaching (WCET). In 2011 that was a one-year instrumental playing initiative for children to experience at some stage in their school career. The measure of success was the number of children continuing to have instrumental lessons outside the classroom after that year.
One way to measure impact is to ask young musicians about their experiences, and that is what we did in Croydon. We consistently found that 80% wished to continue to learn an instrument after their WCET year, half wanting to learn a different instrument, yet only 10% of parents and carers agreed to contribute for their child to have continuing lessons. Our response was to introduce a holistic approach to music in school, using the learning from our whole-class programme to promote the development of instrumental learning as part of classroom music. For us, success was measured by the large number of children who schools said were taking part in instrumental learning as part of classroom music. As that approach became more successful, the continuation figure in our annual Arts Council return got lower and lower.
Original vision
When I was a member of the Music Manifesto Partnership and Advocacy Group with Darren Henley, we talked about how we could bring together a fragmented sector to work together and use peer learning to develop practice. This was the original vision of hubs that was in Henley’s review which led to the first National Plan:
In each area across the country, there is a requirement for clear leadership in the delivery of Music Education and a requirement that it is delivered in a coherent and cohesive way. Different organisations in each geographical location come with a different set of skills and leadership. To deliver the very best rounded Music Education to children, these organisations should come together in partnership.
I worked towards that. I was involved in founding Music Mark, merging the organisations for classroom music and for music services. I later became chair of Music Mark, but that original vision for hubs could not be realised because the accountability structures stopped progress. Before 2012 there was a mechanism for investigating and evaluating new approaches. Since 2012 we have been asked to suggest case studies in our annual music education hub return, but only to be used as advocacy, not for development.
When it comes to measuring impact nationally, we have not got beyond that superficial output of participation. As an example, the title of the second (revised) National Plan is ‘The Power of Music to Change Lives’, but there is not one word in there about how music changes lives. The focus is on children and young people’s experiences, not their development. The role of music hubs is transactional, not developmental.
Since my term as chair of Music Mark, I have had the opportunity to explore that original vision of partnership working through the DCMS/Arts Council Youth Performance Partnership funding which Croydon had for four years, alongside a capacity building grant from the Home Office Youth Endowment Fund. As a result of that work, this year Croydon’s Music Education Hub was recognised by the Arts Council as stretching – the highest quality judgement – in all seven categories in the Arts Council’s Performance Framework.
Peer review
During the review of hub structures in 2023, I was a supporter of fewer hubs, on the basis that it would offer a structure for peer learning based on understanding the diversity of practice and perspectives across the sector. However, the south-west London bid to put peer learning from innovation at the heart of our new multi-area music hub programme was rejected because it did not meet the compliance criteria.
The innovation which has taken place in Croydon means it is an outlier. There is a real danger that that difference is now going to be stifled without proper consideration of the learning that it can give to the sector.
A review of the impact of music education hubs is an opportunity to put in place structures that will meet the original vision for music education to be delivered in a coherent and cohesive way. A new structure should involve peer review and sharing of innovative practice. It should include a mechanism for innovation to move from pilot to trial to implementation. It should offer a way in which research and evidence can drive improvements.
