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If you want to raise the profile of music in your school, then regular performances are a great place to start. Parents, students and staff will expect termly concerts and recitals. But why not create more frequent opportunities for pupils to play live? The more music is seen and heard, the more it will be perceived as an integral part of the life of your school by staff, pupils and parents.
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There are plenty of events throughout the school year that lend themselves to musical performances. Encouraging pupils to play and sing in assembly, at sports day, open evenings, parents evenings, school celebrations or staff events will help to keep music front of mind - rather than something that just happens once a term - thus creating a culture of performance.
Giving pupils more experience of playing in front of an audience will improve their confidence, and this in turn will improve the overall quality of your more formal termly concerts, helping to build a reputation for your music department as a centre for excellence.
Getting buy-in from SLT and support from staff goes hand-in-hand with success for any department. But this can sometimes be easier said than done, especially for teachers of the arts. Have you ever had a clash with a colleague over letting pupils out of class to attend private music lessons? Or have pupils been told they can’t attend an important rehearsal because they ‘can’t be removed from core subjects’? Or do you feel like you’re always advocating for music, and having to justify its place on the timetable?
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Winning hearts and minds is a long game, but one certainly worth investing time in for the dividends it will pay. Imagine a future where music has its rightful place on the school curriculum, and staff support the music department. No more sharing classrooms and timetable space with other subjects. No more peris chasing pupils who have missed their music lesson. Less stress around getting pupils released from lessons for those all-important final rehearsals. More staff attending concerts and performances to show their support.
Where do you start with getting support from staff? Give them a stake in the music department, make it relevant to them and include them. Or why not form a staff choir, with an open invitation for anyone to join? Or invite any staff who already play an instrument to join a staff band or ensemble. Include your staff band or choir in any end of term concerts, or any performances you’re planning throughout the year.
Seeing other teachers as musicians will help pupils to realise that music is something that can be enjoyed beyond school and in their adult lives. And imagine the positive impact it could have on parent-teacher relationships if parents’ evening started with a performance from the staff choir?
If you’re trying to win over SLT, then doing something to improve parental engagement in the school is sure to get their attention. Parental engagement is key to keeping music on your school’s curriculum - particularly when it’s time for pupils to choose their options for KS4. Apart from showing that your offer at KS4 will add value and set pupils in good stead for further education, overcoming barriers to parental engagement really starts with including parents and making them a part of music in your school.
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Invite parents to performances
The show can’t go on without an audience. To get more parents attending performances, make sure that all events are well advertised, giving as much notice as possible. Remember that it can be daunting for parents to come into school - so make it clear that everyone is welcome. This is also important for those who might struggle to find childcare for younger children. Consider making it free entry - if your concert is a fundraiser, have collection buckets on the door and invite people to contribute what they can afford.
Offer workshops to parents
What better way to showcase what you do than to invite parents to experience it for themselves? You could start with a one-off workshop as part of an open afternoon, and if that’s a success, consider running a more regular class for parents to attend.
Create a band for parents
Music is a powerful way to bring people together. Starting up a parents band, ensemble or choir could help to build long-term relationships with parents, increase both pupil and parental engagement and raise the profile of the music department within the school. A choir is a good starting point if you’re looking to be as inclusive as possible and to welcome parents of all abilities.
Does your school have a nominated charity, or a charity of the year - or is your school a charity itself? Music is a powerful vehicle to raise money for a good cause. If your school has a chosen charity, then why not organise a musical fundraiser? There are a number of ways you can do this - here are a few suggestions:
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Spoof talent show
If you’ve got some good sports among your colleagues, why not hold a spoof talent show - like your very own X-Factor, or a spin-off of The Voice - and ask staff to perform. Or you could roll out the idea to other departments to create your own version of Britain’s Got Talent.
Many teachers love the limelight, and pupils will certainly pay to see them making an exhibition of themselves! Make sure you’ve got plenty of support and lots of staff volunteers to man the doors. Invite a mixture of staff and (trustworthy) students to join the panel of judges. Be sure to train your judges about the type of feedback they should give. We’ve all seen Simon Cowell tell people that they can’t sing but this sort of feedback has no place in your school. Focus on accuracy, expression, technique and interpretation. You could always fall back on an exam board’s assessment criteria as a starting point - which would also help students to get more familiar with the specification.
Hold the event at lunchtime for maximum footfall, and charge £1 on the door for entry. You could delegate some of the key responsibilities for running the event to your students - creating an opportunity for them to develop their leadership skills, and yet another way to demonstrate how your department contributes to whole school outcomes.
Public performance
Performing in the local community whilst collecting for your chosen charity could be a great experience for your pupils, as well as an opportunity for you to raise the profile of your department both in and outside school.
Take plenty of photographs, and nominate one of your pupils to write about it for the school newsletter. You could go one further and contact the local press to let them know where and when you’ll be performing - then if you get any coverage, this could go on a display board in your department. Any pupils who take part could also be mentioned in assembly and presented with certificates for their contribution to the community.
Get in touch with your chosen charity beforehand to let them know what you’re up to - they might provide you with some additional fundraising materials and teaching resources or even feature you in their own newsletter or on their website.
You will probably need to contact your local council to ensure you have all the necessary permits required ahead of your event.
Termly concerts
If you want to minimise any addition to your workload and still raise money for a good cause, you could simply use a concert you’re already planning to run as an opportunity to contribute to your school’s chosen charity - and create some positive PR for the music department in the process. Donate the proceeds from ticket sales, as well as any profit from selling refreshments or programmes. You could also hold a raffle during the interval or after the show to raise additional funds and add some excitement to the event.
Putting music into context outside school will help with pupil engagement, especially when it comes to encouraging them to continue with music beyond KS3. Many school travel companies offer trips abroad for school choirs and ensembles, but you needn’t venture outside the UK to find opportunities to inspire your pupils.
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The British Music Experience, Liverpool
The UK’s museum of popular music, the British Music Experience explores how British music has influenced art, fashion and politics and how what we listen to today has evolved. They offer tours for teachers so that you can plan your trip, as well as pre-visit teaching resources. If you want pupils to have a more interactive experience, then try the workshops on offer, which cater for a wide range of ages and musical interests.
Hallé Orchestra, Manchester
The Hallé Orchestra provide a variety of opportunities for KS3 and GCSE pupils to experience the amazing sound of a live orchestra through a series of themed schools’ concerts and performances of set works pieces. Pupils can also get directly involved and perform through the WCET programme with their Come and Play series.
Southbank Centre, London
The Southbank Centre offers free workshops, performances and events for schools to get involved in throughout the year. They even hold a welcome evening for teachers to find out more about the opportunities throughout the academic year and decide which events would best suit their school, and they offer free twilight sessions for teachers to attend.
Highlights include:
Creative Careers Day - a free workshop exploring hidden careers in the music industry - perfect for any pupils who love music, but don’t want to perform.
Schools carol singing with the organ
A free interactive concert for schools and an opportunity to sing classic and modern favourites along to the accompaniment of the Royal Festival Hall organ.
Royal Albert Hall, London
The education and outreach program at the Royal Albert Hall offers ‘inspiration through music for all, regardless of age or background.’ Workshops offered include events management, careers masterclasses and sessions which combine music with maths and science.
Music for Youth Schools Concerts
Each year national music charity Music for Youth run a series Proms, with performances by young people across a wide range of musical genres. What better way to inspire your students by letting them see other young people like them performing on one of the biggest stages in the country? And if your school has a primary phase their Primary Proms are another wonderful (and free!) opportunity to see music making in exciting venues.
If you’re looking to create a real buzz around the music department, competitions could be the way to go. Appealing to pupils’ competitive nature gets them talking - and thanks to shows like the X-Factor and The Voice, talent competitions are something everyone can relate to.
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Inter-house battle of the bands
If your school operates a house system, why not try a good old battle-of-the-bands competition? One band from each house competes for the title of ‘best band’ - they are judged by a panel made up of teachers, parents and special guests. If you have any alumni who work in the music industry, now would be the time to call in a favour! Besides house points and bragging rights, the winning band could be rewarded with a special trip, iTunes credit or even recording time in a local studio.
If you don’t have a house system, the same model still works - or you could play by the traditional battle-of-the-bands rules and award the ‘best band’ accolade to the group who attracts the largest audience - creating an opportunity to teach participants about promotion in the music industry.
Compose a school anthem
Your school has a uniform, a logo and a motto - but do you have a song? Holding a school competition to compose an official anthem for your school could really help to embed music into your school’s culture and identity. Can you imagine every sports fixture, awards ceremony and end of term assembly being marked with a piece of music composed by one of your pupils?
National competitions
Another great way to raise the profile of your department on a whole school level - giving pupils the chance to represent your school on a national and regional level. Competitions you might want to consider include:
The Urdd National Festival is an annual celebration of Welsh language and culture, with over 15,000 children and young people competing for medals every year. Trinity have enjoyed working with the Urdd over the years to sponsor a number of music competitions across the primary and secondary age groups in some of their solo and band categories.
Girls group ‘Anglylion Roc’ won the first place medal in the 2019 Solo/Band - Year 6 and under category and were later invited by Trinity to London for a special acoustic performance.
NCBF - the National Concert Band Festival is the UK’s largest wind band and big band festival that celebrates and promotes the music and activities of wind bands and jazz bands through a series of regional festivals, culminating in a National Festival. Although not competing directly against other bands, performances are critiqued against various aspects of the performance and awarded a certificate at either bronze, silver or gold level.
You can enter your students for a Music for Youth regional festival. These Regional Festival Series are free for you to take part in and they are open to any type of group, genre of music and standard of playing. Your performers just need to be 21 or under and perform as a group of two or more musicians.
Their Regional Festivals offer a fantastic opportunity for young musicians to perform and share their music, listen to performances from other groups, meet other musicians and gain expert advice from professional musicians and music educators. Perform at a regional festival or submit a recording and you’ll also receive an invitation to the National Festival.
Celebrating the cultural diversity of your school is bound to be on your senior leadership team’s agenda. And with music and culture being so inextricably linked, the music department is in a unique position to lead from the front on this whole-school priority.
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Cultural festivals
You can’t do it all, so any festivals you choose to focus your efforts on will really depend on the demographics of your school, and the local community you serve.
National days, and their anthems
Why not teach your choir the national anthems of different countries, and have them sing them in assembly to mark that country’s national day? This is also a great opportunity to link up and do some cross-curricular work with the MFL department.
Link up with international schools
If you have a partnership with an international school, you could film and share your performance with them, and ask them to do the same. Or you could even create a live performance together via Skype - provided both your schools have an excellent Wi-Fi connection!
Eurovision song contest
Eurovision is a real institution - take advantage of the media coverage this gets and hold your own version in school, or host a viewing party with a big screen and themed snacks. There is plenty of scope for working with other departments to make this a cross-curricular project. Subjects you could involve include Geography, Textiles, Dance and Modern Foreign Languages.
If your school has an activities week at the end of the summer term, then why not include a music festival? This is a great way to showcase everything pupils have achieved in music over the course of the year, and it’s another opportunity to create cross-curricular links and to reach out to the local community, as well as a lovely event for parents to attend. Why not encourage pupils’ families to come along with a picnic and a blanket to get the full festival experience? Running an annual event like this could help to build a sense of the music department as an institution in your school, and to create a tradition that will endure for years to come.
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Cross-curricular links
The possibilities for cross-curricular links with a festival are endless. Here are a few ideas for how you could include other departments:
Student leadership
A big event to run is a great opportunity to develop student’s enterprise and leadership skills. Enlisting student volunteers to help run the event will give them a sense of real ownership - not to mention the work it will save you. Make a list of all the jobs to be done and create a team for each - promotion, ticket sales, logistics etc. Assign a member of staff to supervise each team to give you the peace of mind that they have support if they need it.
Local businesses
Why not approach local businesses to see if they would like to be sponsors or official suppliers of your music festival? Help pupils on the promotions team to put a proposal together to pitch to would-be sponsors.
Social media is a useful tool to help you raise the profile of your department. If you don’t have an online presence, then you’re missing a huge opportunity to engage pupils, parents and the local community. Social media can be an effective way to draw back the curtain on your work and show what really goes on in the music department.
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Keep parents and pupils informed about upcoming performances and events, share photos and videos of performances (with the appropriate permissions, of course) and celebrate pupils’ successes. Social media is also a great tool for documenting your department's success over time - just imagine how proud you’ll feel looking back over your timeline of tweets or Facebook posts for a whole year - also handy for providing evidence to governors and SLT.
Follow your school’s policy for creating a social media account for the music department (or work with SLT to establish one) or, if they prefer, use the generic school accounts. And of course, before you go publishing anything, be sure to follow the policy, and ensure you have permission from parents before sharing photos or videos of any pupils online.
Getting the senior leadership team behind you is important for any head of department, but winning hearts and minds can be a challenge. It stands to reason that creating a strong culture of music within your school will lead to excellent results - but this takes time. If you need to ammunition to help you to advocate for music in the here and now, think about how you can demonstrate the value you add and how music contributes to whole school outcomes.
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