MH: In what ways has the teaching of music in Birmingham schools improved since you started there in the 1990s?
SB: Back in the early 1990s, it was all about small group or one-to-one teaching, traditional forms of tuition, for only those parents, carers and schools that could afford it. Then in 2001 [Education Secretary] David Blunkett said that every KS2 child that wants it should have access to instrumental learning. That transformed instrumental and vocal teaching in music services around the country, and certainly for Birmingham. We adopted a system with seven failing schools to see if it would support school improvement for the children in those schools and communities. It had a big impact on teachers and on how we understood the children in front of us. We doubled up teachers, which was a good way of mentoring new staff members. It was no longer a 45-minute lesson on one instrument, but a holistic music teaching model, whether singing, listening, interpreting, improvisation, composing, or performing.
MH: Where did WCIT fit into this?
SB: It was one of the main changes, and we loved it. When delivered correctly and with the children's learning [foremost], it's a really fun way of teaching music. Teachers had to become sort of actors, and singers – we had to have CPD from vocal teachers, as well as in behavioural management. Then, over the years, inclusion and SEND had an impact on all our teaching through the inclusive practitioner model of knowing the children that are in front of you. We always start with ‘which child has the most needs in your whole class?’ and that's where you start your planning for the lesson; that also got us thinking about how the whole-class model would impact on a small group of just three or four. So, WCIT was a key development.
MH: With the focus on WCIT, were there aspects of music education that you felt took a back seat?
SB: When you're teaching a small group, you're able to do a lot more aural and theory tests, preparing children for examinations. Many teachers disliked WCIT because they couldn't do as much of this as they wanted, and the rate of progress was much slower, being in a class of 30. But that soon changed as we talked about progression in a very different way. We put singing at the heart of WCIT, alongside instrumental learning – about 50:50 – right from the beginning. Children who started with WCIT typically elected to carry on playing into Years 5 and 6, getting into ensembles in their second or third year of playing, whereas children from a small group would probably do so by the end of their first year of playing. So, we had a big rethink of the different types of ensembles we provided, because we didn't have the same footfall of children progressing into our central, auditioned ensembles. While some ensembles took a bit of a hit because of WCIT, we created new school-based groups to suit those who had gone through WCIT, where knowledge and notation weren't key, and it was more playing by symbols and by ear – a more flexible way of learning rather than the more traditional route.
MH: How did you handle the Covid pandemic?
SB: We created online access to everything, creating thousands of videos, and kept adding to this for four years after the pandemic. It took the pandemic for us to really think about how children, families and schools can be supported when we're not there. We found that before the pandemic, children wouldn't travel into what we called our area groups (like mosque schools) and there was a huge decline in ensemble memberships. So we started to think creatively about new ensembles, whether we do some online mixed ensembles. We filmed rehearsals, concerts, and the venues that we were in. For example, what is it like to attend St Philip's on a Wednesday at 4pm? Let's do a ‘walk and talk’ video. Then, if you get a letter or a flyer about joining [an ensemble], click on this video. It's an instant way of building rapport. Inclusion is everything in teaching.
MH: Birmingham has a very diverse population. How has that been reflected in your work?
SB: We made sure that we were able to access what I call ‘world music’ instruments: steel pans, the tabla, the dhol – not so much to talk about in whole-class but to run small groups. World music has always been a core element and we've seen it grow. It's not only children and young people from certain communities that would be listening to that music and learning those instruments; any child wishing to play a tabla and harmonium can do so. Birmingham has something really special in its diverse communities, and we were serving schools across the city with complete breadth of delivery. To see non-south Asian people playing in our central dhol ensemble and tabla ensemble was very rewarding; it showed that it's not just about where children come from or what community they serve. We wanted to make sure that the opportunity was there for any child to access any type of instrument in any type of ensemble. We had to think and work quite hard around supporting certain areas of the city that we had been in for some time but not really engaged with. We talked with local mosques, the Muslim Liaison Committee, and met with rabbis. When you go into school settings, you can talk to faith leaders about music, its impact, and key skills that it brings when delivered properly. You can talk about the importance of music, and stress that it's delivered in a very safe, serious way.
MH: You've had some incredible results in Birmingham and learned a great deal in the process. Do you think there is scope for some sort of national framework for music teaching, a model of best practice?
SB: I think with the revised National Plan for Music Education, there is every possibility of this. Inclusivity is one of the plan's five main aims, as is sustainability – not just environmentally, but around future workforce, mental health and wellbeing. We are having to attend joint CPD, webinars and conferences as part of Arts Council funding requirements of larger geographical hubs. We're all being challenged with pretty much the same thing now as hubs; some are a lot further forward than others, but there's joint ownership in CPD, online meetings and webinars. Every hub must also have a Head of Inclusion. We are all thinking a lot more creatively about how we reach children and young people, how we support our staff, how we support schools. The Arts Council is really pushing us to develop our partnership work.
The big thing for the National Plan is being in partnership and the new hubs working strategically across larger areas, in the hope that if you're working with more partners, you're going to reach more children and learn from others. We were very fortunate in Birmingham to have nine super-strong partners. At the end of the last academic year, we reached almost 99% of the city's 450 education settings. This involved creative collaborations with the CBSO and Ex Cathedra, so it wasn't all about the Music Service or the hub lead.
MH: What new opportunities and challenges do you anticipate the new music hubs will bring?
SB: We're moving into an interesting time of new geographical hubs, with only 43 instead of the previous 118 across England. Arts Council funding is the same, but actually declining as everything gets more expensive. We're expected to reach more children for no more money. We're expected to be more inclusive, to do a lot more things with less. And something will have to give; I just hope this isn't the children that we should be reaching and the schools that we should be supporting. We've all had to write school development plans and do performance frameworks for the Arts Council. We've all got smart objectives. There's a lot of documentation that we've all been working on tremendously hard for the last two years. And, if I'm being honest, that has sometimes got in the way of going out and having a quality conversation with a school leader about the impact of music in their school. So, are these new frameworks, pilot programmes and Arts Council funding documents going to get in the way of our reaching more children? I'm hoping that with the new geographical super-hubs we will reach more people, because there will undoubtedly be partners that we've worked with that haven't worked in other areas before, and I know that this will have a positive impact. I hope that everything that we've been doing as part of the changes to music education hubs is going to be for the better. I guess only time will tell.
Birmingham’s Youth Proms feature many genres of music
