Supporting Classroom Teachers to Teach Music: Six Learnings
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
As the UpRising360 interim evaluation report is published, project lead Ben Sellers shares some key learnings from the first year of delivery
It's the biggest question I have been grappling with since UpRising began in 2020: how do we support generalist classroom teachers and teaching assistants to develop the competence and confidence to deliver engaging and inspirational music lessons?
In the first few years of UpRising we tried several approaches, including our Musicking for the Terrified online training, as well as the development of the UpRising Resource Balloon. Then in 2024 we secured funding from Youth Music to pilot a new approach, bringing in music hub specialist to visit 10 schools weekly for 30 weeks: co-delivering, reflecting and creating resources alongside classroom teachers.
A few weeks ago marked the halfway point in the project, and I received a fascinating interim evaluation report of the project from Professor Victoria Kinsella and Dr Anthony Anderson at Birmingham City University (see link to full report below).
The report highlighted some of the breakthroughs and wins, and also talked about the challenges we have faced. It was thought-provoking, and pushed me to review and refine some elements of the project. This blog shares five key learnings, some of which may be useful for colleagues working in similar coalfaces:
Hang out first, train second
Last year we had a teacher training day before the project started, offering principles and approaches to inclusive practice However, as the saying goes 'when you have met one Disabled person, you have met one Disabled person', and without hanging out with each teachers' pupils, we couldn't speak directly to each teachers' needs. Inclusive practice is contextual. You need to be in it to win it. And you need to be supported in it to win it.
So, this year the training day will be a few weeks into term, once our visiting specialists have had a chance to meet the pupils and teach a few lessons to get their bearings. We will then curate the training as a team, making sure that everything we offer can be translated into each teacher's classroom.
Each teacher needs to go on their own journey
It's not about deciding on a list of things a teacher needs to be able to do at the end of the year and then seeing whether they manage to get their or not. I write this down and it seems obvious, but this approach is typical of many professional development programmes. What happens? Those who were going to get there get there anyway, some make huge progress but don't get there and it seems like a failure, and we as trainers or project leaders hold power over another person's developmental journey.
A huge learning for me this year has been to take the following approach: firstly, clearly articulate the skills and expertise needed to be a brilliant practitioner. Next, let each teacher identify their strengths, as well as areas areas of expertise they would like to develop. Next, we come up with a list of success criteria together: how will we know when we we have got there? Finally, we work together with each teacher's visiting specialist to put the best conditions in place to make it happen. Shared power, shared ownership of the project, and (research shows) this approach makes it much more likely that the teacher will continue to seek out development opportunities after the project is over.
A bit part of this process is about understanding where each teacher is coming from, and why they think what they think and make the choices they make. This takes time and relationship building, but is essential to successful practitioner development, and a very enjoyable process.
"I am just bringing an apple pie to a banquet"
This was a quote from one of this year's visiting hub specialists, referring to her bringing her musical skills to sit within the context of the vast range of skills that generalist teachers in specialist settings use every day. So what we need to do is frame inclusive music-making as an extension of teachers' existing practice and skillset, rather than something completely different, new and often a bit scary. If this happens, they move into leading musical activities from a place of power, rather than uncertainty.
How do we do this? Well, Dr Beth Pickard and Alex Lupo's brand new and fantastic guide for Autism Inclusion Bases offers some excellent beginnings. The UpRising team have some training ideas that we are going to try out this year, and will get back to you soonest :)
Curriculum, skills development and inclusive activities need to be clearly linked together
In 2023 we created a Curriculum Guidance Document for Special Schools. Since then our thinking has developed quite a lot. For a curriculum to be genuinely useful for generalist classroom teachers we somehow need to link individual activity choices with systematic skills progression. This is something that a specialist music teacher would naturally do, but is much more challenging for generalist teachers. We have been working on this, and have a plan (ambitious and maybe possible) to create a teacher crowd-sourced activity 'cookbook' and progression map. We will share more at the Musicmark Conference in November at our session 'A Model Music Curriculum for Specialist Schools isn't possible... or is it?', and then online afterwards. Perhaps see you there!
We are operating within a special school staffing crisis
If you work in specialist settings then you will know this already: many schools are in the midst of a genuine staffing crisis. One understandable consequence of this is that committing staff time to develop music-making skills isn't always top of a school's agenda. Having said that, teachers and school leaders are quick to point out the potential of music for their pupils, and the desire to upskill their staff to maximise that potential.
In response, we have had to walk a fine line of not making unreasonable requests on schools (requests that shouldn't be unreasonable, but are given the reality of things at the moment) whilst making sure that schools commit to the minimum necessary for the project to actually work. Practically, this means we have asked for one 'out of school day' for each of the teachers (see point 1), termly online reflection sessions, and then a 10 minute chat with the visiting music specialist at a time of their choice, which might be a different day than the day of the weekly visit. This is more than we asked for last year, but what we asked for wasn't enough.
PMLD Teachers love hanging out together
Our PMLD Music Play strand, which you can read about in this blog post by Dr Rosie Rushton, has successfully embedded a new, playful approach to PMLD musicking in several schools across the region (an online resource based on the project will be live in the new year). One unexpected outcome was the significant value that teachers got in spending quality time with other PMLD teachers: time to talk approaches, challenges, experiences. Pupils with PMLD make up a small percentage of school populations (around 0.1%), and require a very specific approach to education that, in turn, requires a special set of teaching skills. To be in a room with others who think about PMLD teaching every day was something of a revelation.
So at the end of the project several teachers asked: 'well, what next?'. It was a legitimate question, and we are responding by exploring the idea of setting up a PMLD Music Network, a place for people who make music with people with PMLD to talk, learn, share and do. We are in the very beginning stages of thinking about what this could look like, so do get in touch if you are interested in getting involved.
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In summary, this year could sort of be seen as a pilot year, with refinements made as we move with renewed vigour into the second year, with a new set of schools and several refinements to the programme. We are always up for a chat with people interested in our work, and for those people who want to go more into depth on any of the above points I do recommend reading some or all of the interim report.
Ben Sellers
UpRising Programme Lead
