Interview

Nice piece in @MusicTeacherMag in which I am interviewed about being honoured with the lifetime achievement award for music education. Trouble with being interviewed is you can’t edit what you said –anyway here is what tumbled out of my mouth!

https://www.musicteachermagazine.co.uk/content/qa/qa-professor-martin-fautley

The Purpose of Music Education

Article by me in Music Teacher magazine, in which I ponder that point. Available at https://www.musicteachermagazine.co.uk/content/features/the-purpose-of-music-education?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0YWFCdR1A4xvJRggrsNouyjWEtN41GE_bvoZIXTAH0UIPRzMRY4cAkDsE_aem_A84mbIgMNkkzqnfcAxdLvw#Echobox=1734959144-1

A blog elsewhere…

Some thoughts by me on classroom composing at https://www.icancompose.com/composing-in-schools-thoughts-on-revisiting-john-paynter/

Podcast interview

Having retired, I was interviewed by Patrick Johns for the Music Teachers Association about my thoughts on music education looking back over the (many!) years, but also looking forward too. Anyway, should you so wish, you can listen to the resultant podcast here:

PODCAST

New article published

I’m very pleased to say that an article in which I played a very small part indeed, involving post-humanism and music education, has now been published in ‘Music Education Research’ journal. All the heavy-lifting academic writing duty was done by Dr Victoria Kinsella and Dr Adam Whittaker. Its title is “Methodological shifts and departures in music education research: embracing complexity with diffraction, intra-action, and agentic assemblages”. It’s available on open access, and can be found at:

https://doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2024.2354732

Some very personal reflections and thoughts on the Music Hub HLO data published 06/05/24

Firstly, can I please apologise for being seemingly useless with WordPress! I am not able to present the tables in this document in a way which I think is easily readable. So for people easily offended: apologies – I clearly have more learning to do. To alleviate this issue, here is a link to a slightly better layout version of this document and tables as a PDF.

This document is simply my thoughts on the hub data regarding the new Music Hub Lead Organisation (HLO) data which was published on 6/5/24 by ACE. It is important to note that these are just my thoughts, and what I found to be of interest. This is ACE’s dataset (not mine), and I am not commenting on the process of arriving at this HLO data, nor on the philosophy or rationale behind such decisions. It is also important to note that now I am retired, these figures have not been double-checked by another researcher, and it is entirely possible that copy/paste or calculation function errors have crept in, so please be wary of that! Of course, I hope I have been accurate, but even so… 😊  

The full original dataset which I used for this (admittedly rudimentary) analysis is to be found at https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/our-open-funds/music-hub-investment

The new HLOs divide the country geographically, and are region based. There is an interactive map of these on the ACE website at https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/u50cw/9/

There are 43 new HLOs, including two which have yet to be announced. I don’t know anything about reasons for this, but have included them in the dataset as that is what ACE have done. The 43 new HLOs, and the areas they cover are these:

Name of Music Hub Area	Name of Hub Lead Organisation
Bedfordshire & Milton Keynes	Inspiring Music Education Hub
Berkshire	Berkshire Music Trust
Birmingham	Services for Education Ltd
Black Country	Dudley Metropolitan Council – Dudley Performing Arts
Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire	Buckinghamshire Music Trust
Cambridgeshire & Peterborough	Cambridgeshire Music
Cheshire & Wirral	Love Music Trust
Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly	ASONE PERFORM Community Interest Company
Coventry, Solihull, Warwickshire	Coventry Music
Cumbria	Westmorland and Furness Council: Music Hub
Derby & Derbyshire	Derby & Derbyshire Music Partnership
Devon, Plymouth & Torbay	Devon Music Education Hub
Dorset & Somerset	Octagon Theatre, Somerset
Essex, Southend-on-Sea & Thurrock	Essex Music Services
Gloucestershire, Swindon & Wiltshire	Gloucestershire Music Education Hub
Greater Manchester and Blackburn with Darwen	Bolton Music Service
Hampshire	Hampshire Music Service
Herefordshire & Worcestershire	Severn Arts
Hertfordshire	Hertfordshire Music Service
Hull, East Riding, North & North East Lincolnshire	Hull Music Service
Kent & Medway	Kent Music
Lancashire	Lancashire Music Service
Leicester & Leicestershire	Leicester-Shire Schools Music Service
Lincolnshire	Lincolnshire Music Service
London – East	WFMS
London – North	Haringey Music Service
London – South East	SEL Music Education Ltd
London – South West	TBC pending outcome of the Investment Programme
London – West	The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Merseyside, Halton and Warrington	Liverpool City Region Combined Authority
Norfolk & Suffolk	Norfolk County Council
North and South of Tyne and Darlington	North Tyneside Music Education Hub
North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire & Rutland	Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust
Nottingham & Nottinghamshire	Culture, Learning and Libraries (Midlands) – Nottinghamshire Music Hub
Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent, Telford & Wrekin	Entrust Support Services
Solent, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole	Southampton Music Hub
South Yorkshire	TBC pending outcome of the Investment Programme
Surrey	Surrey Arts
Sussex	Brighton Dome & Festival Limited
Tees Valley	Tees Valley Music Service
West of England (Avon)	Bristol Music Trust
West Yorkshire	Bradford Music Education Hub
York & North Yorkshire	North Yorkshire Music Service

Of the new HLOs, I obviously know quite a few, and with the Birmingham Music Education Research Group (BMERG) based at Birmingham City University have worked closely with a number, and my colleagues not yet out to pasture are continuing so to do! I start by looking at the HLOs in the Midlands, as that is obviously the place I live and have worked in for many years. 

Name of Music Hub Area	Hub Lead Organisation Legal Name	Names of Upper Tier Local Authorities in this Music Hub Area
Derby & Derbyshire	Derbyshire County Council	Derby, Derbyshire
Leicester & Leicestershire	Leicestershire County Council	Leicester, Leicestershire
Lincolnshire	Lincolnshire County Council	Lincolnshire
North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire & Rutland	Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust	Rutland, North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire
Nottingham & Nottinghamshire	Culture, Learning and Libraries (Midlands)	Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
Birmingham	Services For Education Ltd	Birmingham
Black Country	Dudley Metropolitan Council	Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall, Sandwell
Coventry, Solihull, Warwickshire	Coventry City Council	Solihull, Coventry, Warwickshire
Herefordshire & Worcestershire	Severn Arts	Herefordshire, County of, Worcestershire
Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent, Telford & Wrekin	Entrust Support Services Limited	Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

Nothing much of surprise here, but interesting to note the HLOs identified. Also unsurprisingly Birmingham is a thing in itself, whilst the other areas have one of the Hubs identified as HLO, a pattern which is repeated more-or-less across the country.

Money!

With this announcement comes the division of finances, and this is the part which is interesting to dig into. There are two parts to the finances awarded, a Revenue Allocation, and a Capital Allocation. On the ACE website (https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/creative-matters/news/arts-council-england-announces-new-music-hub-lead-organisations) these are described thus:

“New Hub Lead Organisations will receive over £101 million from the Department for Education. This includes £76 million in regular funding for the Music Hubs programme and £25 million to invest in musical instruments, equipment and technology, including resources specifically designed for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. ”

By my reckoning, £76,105,440 has been awarded in Revenue across the piece, and exactly £25,000,000 in capital. This makes a total of £101,105,440 for music hubs. No mean sums, but this is not the place to calculate what it would have been if the original allocation figures awarded when music (education) hubs were first set up had kept pace with inflation (or, now I’m a pensioner, with the pensions triple-lock 😉, which occupies me somewhat 😉). With regard to this, over on Twitter/X, Nigel Taylor (@nigelmtaylor) observed this: 

“£76m revenue is a lot of money. 

But in reality it is a mere 1% increase on 2012 funding. 

1% in 12 years, when inflation is calculated at 37% over the same period.

The additional £25m capital grant is a one off. It’s to be welcomed, but don’t conflate revenue with capital.”

To which Jonathan Savage (@jpsavage) replied:

“I think that people forget that the actual cut in music education funding since 2011 has been around 40%, and that is before the negative impact of inflation (as you have pointed out).”

But, as I have hinted at, in this document I am employing a version of Hume’s guillotine, and just looking at what ‘is’, rather than what ‘ought’ to be the case.

London

One of the things I have always found interesting about being Birmingham-based, is that Birmingham is big! According to council’s own website, “Birmingham City Council is Europe’s largest local authority”, and this means that although London is (obviously!) bigger, it is divided into various boroughs and areas which are smaller. ACE has divided London into 5 area, which it has labelled by compass-points, East; North; South-East; South-West; and West. More on London in a bit, for the moment, back to the West Midlands…

Midlands: Pupil Numbers

One of the things which I and BMERG colleagues have been much exercised by in the past is pupil numbers in various areas of the country (this has been when we are looking at KS4 and KS5 entries, but that’s not the point of this analysis), and so it is very helpful to have these laid out for us in this dataset. What it shows is that the pupil population of the West Midlands is 586,970, and that there are 1,324 schools. Looking at the Midlands region as a whole, there are 1,626,857 pupils, and 4,462 schools. 

Nationwide: Pupil Numbers

Moving now to the national picture, the country (this is England only, for those reading from outside the UK, as each constituent nation of the UK is different) is divided into five regions, London; Midlands; North; South East; South West. There are interesting details concerning the numbers of pupils and the numbers of schools in each of these regions:

Area	Total Pupils	Total Schools
London	1,288,155	2,558
Midlands	1,626,857	4,462
North	2,311,963	6,565
South East	1,974,581	5,216
South West	1,005,128	3,108

The North clearly has the largest number of pupils, and the largest number of schools, whilst the South West is the smallest. Interestingly (well, I thought it was interesting!) London does not have more pupils and/or schools than the Midlands, and in fact is second from bottom in this table for pupils, and bottom for schools. (I am not doing much by way of data interpretation here, but I thought this was worth pointing out!) Another factor I find interesting in this is that the school population for ACE appears to be only 8,206,684. For no obvious reason I thought it would be more than that, for example gov.uk gives the figure at 9,073,832, but that’s for all ‘school age’ pupils, so assuming there are some exclusions from ACE for this, but don’t know the counting methodology, which is always problematic in large datasets anyway (which I know from bitter personal experience, when I was working with Dr Adam Whittaker on some music education stats analysis he ‘broke’ excel, by having too many rows!). 

More on money!

Digging into the dataset, it is clear that some very complex decisions have been made. In order to arrive at some form of weighting, Free School Meals numbers have been used, which, as we don’t have anything else systemically to employ, seems reasonable. This means that in the ACE tables there are figures for Revenue and Capital, and then FSM additions for each, and for each hub music area. In this analysis I am just using the total figures, as I don’t want to get into analysis of the FSM weightings for each area, I am just going to assume (always dangerous – I know) that someone somewhere has done this analysis properly, and then worked backwards from the global figures available to calculate these sums.

What this means is that by region, the total allocations of ACE funding are this:

Area	Revenue	Capital	TOTAL
London	£11,366,293.41	£3,733,732.24	£15,100,025.65
Midlands	£15,357,330.42	£5,044,754.49	£20,402,084.91
North	£21,994,647.01	£7,225,057.44	£29,219,704.45
South East	£17,945,815.20	£5,895,050.08	£23,840,865.28
South West	£9,441,353.96	£3,101,405.75	£12,542,759.71

Which is again interesting, as a common cry from the regions is that “London gobbles up most of the funding”. Well, clearly not the case here (hooray, from here in the Midlands!).

Then if we look at the per capita (that’s pupil numbers) we see that the nationwide difference is only £0.92p between the lowest per capita funded area – again, interestingly, London, and the highest, the North:

Area	Revenue	Capital	TOTAL	Per Capita
London	£11,366,293.41	£3,733,732.24	£15,100,025.65	£11.72
Midlands	£15,357,330.42	£5,044,754.49	£20,402,084.91	£12.54
North	£21,994,647.01	£7,225,057.44	£29,219,704.45	£12.64
South East	£17,945,815.20	£5,895,050.08	£23,840,865.28	£12.07
South West	£9,441,353.96	£3,101,405.75	£12,542,759.71	£12.48

Drilling down into the areas now, there is a lot of interesting data about relative sizes of regions, and of the various music hub areas within this. Let me start with the Midlands (of course!)

The Midlands

Name of Music Hub Area	REVENUE  Allocation TOTAL (£)	CAPITAL Allocation TOTAL (£)	Revenue + Capital	Total Pupils	Total Schools
Birmingham	1,959,449	643,663	2,603,111	200,569	424
Black Country	1,975,824	649,042	2,624,865	205,226	452
Coventry, Solihull, Warwickshire	1,684,457	553,330	2,237,787	181,175	448
Derby & Derbyshire	1,419,986	466,454	1,886,440	147,731	513
Herefordshire & Worcestershire	956,168	314,093	1,270,261	104,376	347
Leicester & Leicestershire	1,471,098	483,243	1,954,341	153,320	402
Lincolnshire	998,788	328,094	1,326,882	107,449	360
North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire & Rutland	1,140,709	374,713	1,515,422	125,580	345
Nottingham & Nottinghamshire	1,587,653	521,531	2,109,183	171,852	449
Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent, Telford & Wrekin	2,163,199	710,593	2,873,792	229,579	722
Midlands Totals	15,357,330	5,044,754	20,402,085	1,626,857	4,462

What is of interest here is that in some of the rural areas, Lincolnshire, for example, which we know has areas of coastal poverty, and a relatively small pupil population, yet a large geographical area, is a standalone hub, as is Hereford and Worcestershire, yet Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent, and Telford & Wrekin are bundled together, and have the highest number of pupils in the region, and, concomitantly, the highest funding. Having driven around the Staffordshire moorlands to visit schools, I can certainly state some of them are quite a long way from other places in the region! 

Conversely it transpires the Black Country (another area I have driven around a lot to visit schools) has more pupils than Birmingham, which is again not something I’d have predicted. 

Solihull, where the residents will tell you they emphatically do not live in Birmingham (although driving round it the only way you can tell in some places is that the street signs change colour) is conjoined with Warwickshire – a strange jigsaw-piece shaped county with a lump missing for Coventry, which is also in this mix, and has quite a high pupil head-count.

The smallest hub head-count and funding in this region is Hereford and Worcestershire, with Lincolnshire not far behind. The highest head-count and funding is, as mentioned above, the Black Country, with Birmingham not far behind on both.

The finding differentials across the Midlands reveal that there is a differential of £0.91 between the highest per capita area, Birmingham, and the lowest, North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire & Rutland:

Name of Music Hub Area	per capita
Birmingham	£12.98
Black Country	£12.79
Coventry, Solihull, Warwickshire	£12.35
Derby & Derbyshire	£12.77
Herefordshire & Worcestershire	£12.17
Leicester & Leicestershire	£12.75
Lincolnshire	£12.35
North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire & Rutland	£12.07
Nottingham & Nottinghamshire	£12.27
Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent, Telford & Wrekin	£12.52

This differential is not out of kilter with other areas of the country, and is certainly far less than is the case in London. 

London

Moving south now to London, we find this:

Name of Music Hub Area	REVENUE Allocation TOTAL (£)	CAPITAL Allocation TOTAL (£)	Revenue + Capital	Total Pupils	Total Schools
London – East	2,934,565	963,980	3,898,546	327,975	573
London – North	1,762,586	578,995	2,341,580	201,719	437
London – South East	2,280,982	749,284	3,030,266	255,654	549
London – South West	2,245,869	737,749	2,983,618	256,443	514
London – West	2,142,291	703,725	2,846,015	246,364	485
London Totals	11,366,293	3,733,732	15,100,026	1,288,155	2,558

What is of interest here is that North London has far fewer pupils than East London (and, yes, I know East London is not the same as London-East), and is therefore funded lower than the other parts of the capital. There is a lot to be said about the London figures, and I am sure those in that particular region will be digging into these stats in a great deal of detail. For my part, having visited (but not driven around!) a number of schools here, I am always intrigued by what I see, as the whole ‘vibe’ of the capital can be very different in Barking and Dagenham, say, from Richmond on Thames. But I guess the same can be said everywhere, and of places in every hub.

Another point of interest for me about the London figures is that it has some of the lowest per capita figures:

Name of Music Hub Area	per capita
London – East	£11.89
London – North	£11.61
London – South East	£11.85
London – South West	£11.63
London – West	£11.55

Although London East receives more funding that London North, the per capita figures show only a slight differential, with the small sum of only 34p/head between the highest and lowest. This seems to imply that weightings for London are taking something else into account. Unlike some of the distances mentioned in sections below, transport issues for Peri’s may not be as problematic as in some regions, although it is likely that there is more to it than that simple explanation. 

The North

An important (personal) observation about the North is that there is a lot of it! To a Midlander like me some of the North seems to begin just beyond the Midlands, and yet it goes all the way up to the Scottish Border. Which will be obvious to anyone living there, and yet does, I feel need saying (sorry!). 

Name of Music Hub Area	REVENUE  Allocation TOTAL (£)	CAPITAL Allocation TOTAL (£)	Revenue + Capital	Total Pupils	Total Schools
Cheshire & Wirral	1,414,831	464,760	1,879,591	154,476	445
Cumbria	608,666	199,942	808,608	68,948	318
Greater Manchester and Blackburn with Darwen	4,700,671	1,544,131	6,244,803	486,303	1203
Hull, East Riding, North & North East Lincolnshire	1,288,637	423,306	1,711,943	136,071	389
Lancashire	1,870,409	614,414	2,484,823	187,194	657
Merseyside, Halton and Warrington	2,017,878	662,856	2,680,734	210,687	557
North and South of Tyne and Darlington	2,746,933	902,344	3,649,277	288,616	897
South Yorkshire	1,962,873	644,787	2,607,660	208,137	525
Tees Valley	878,882	288,705	1,167,587	91,805	237
West Yorkshire	3,557,814	1,168,712	4,726,526	375,337	914
York & North Yorkshire	947,053	311,099	1,258,152	104,389	423
North Totals	21,994,647	7,225,057	29,219,704	2,311,963	6,565

As such a big area, the North has a large pupil head count, and absorbs the Lion’s share of ACE funding accordingly. It has the highest per capita funding, at £12.64. 

Within this large area there are clearly significant regional differences. Cumbria for example (I have driven to a school in Barrow-in-Furness, so can vouchsafe it’s a long way over largely country roads, and definitely not like the M6!) has the smallest pupil population in the country, smaller even than Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and receives the lowest financial allocation in the country accordingly. However, were I a manager in that hub, I would be worried about my travel costs bill, as you can’t just hop on a bus to go and teach in a school. Google maps tells me Kendal to the aforementioned Barrow-in-Furness is nearly 2 hours by train, that’s a long way to go for a peri for that one double bass pupil! And, yes, again I know the same can be said of other parts of the country too, and no, I don’t fancy taking my Double Bass on the tube, but even so…

Conversely the North has the largest music hub area by pupils and finance, this being Greater Manchester and Blackburn with Darwen, which with close on half a million pupils, receives close on half a million pounds in funding. Another feature of the North which is worthy of comment is the variation between per capita funding between the various hubs:

Name of Music Hub Area	per capita
Cheshire & Wirral	£12.17
Cumbria	£11.73
Greater Manchester and Blackburn with Darwen	£12.84
Hull, East Riding, North & North East Lincolnshire	£12.58
Lancashire	£13.27
Merseyside, Halton and Warrington	£12.72
North and South of Tyne and Darlington	£12.64
South Yorkshire	£12.53
Tees Valley	£12.72
West Yorkshire	£12.59
York & North Yorkshire	£12.05

Cumbria, the smallest funded hub, also has the lowest per capita spending. Now, there are doubtless complex socio-economic and FSM reasons for this, but it receives a smaller sum than nearby Lancashire, which itself receives a larger per capita allowance than the big Greater Manchester conglomeration. The Lancashire figure appears to be the highest per capita rating in the country. Again, I know and can deduce nothing from the dataset about the reasons for this, but is interesting, I feel. The differential between the lowest and the highest funded hub areas are greater than elsewhere in the country, with the Lancs-Cumbria figure being some £1.55. 

The South West

The South West includes the Isles of Scilly, and if I was worried about a peri going to Barrow-in-Furness, that’s a mere jaunt compared with going from Truro to St Mary’s on Scilly, which Google Maps tells me at the time of writing, I would have to leave tomorrow, and it would take just under 6 hours if I left at 0600 am, then after a couple of hours (good value for that Double Bass pupil, although I have never taken mine on a passenger ferry!) another 6 hours to get back to Truro. Of course, I must say I have no idea if anyone actually does this gig, but it’s interesting to contemplate! 

Anyway, back to the South West, again this is a big area, with a lot of both rural and coastal schools. Transport, even between non-offshore places can take a while. Some time ago, we in BMERG undertook a research project in Bodmin, and the same issue of time noted elsewhere could be seen in driving around this area. 

Name of Music Hub Area	REVENUE  Allocation TOTAL (£)	CAPITAL Allocation TOTAL (£)	Revenue + Capital	Total Pupils	Total Schools
Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly	694,206	228,041	922,247	73,957	281
Devon, Plymouth & Torbay	1,443,850	474,293	1,918,142	155,925	513
Dorset & Somerset	1,098,092	360,714	1,458,806	114,607	429
Gloucestershire, Swindon & Wiltshire	1,772,099	582,120	2,354,219	193,136	629
Hampshire	1,736,303	570,361	2,306,664	180,098	540
Solent, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole	1,241,113	407,695	1,648,808	129,619	293
West of England (Avon)	1,455,692	478,183	1,933,874	157,786	423
SW Totals	9,441,354	3,101,406	12,542,760	1,005,128	3,108

I was expecting Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to have the smallest pupil population in the country, but that distinction goes to Cumbria. Cornwall and Scilly comes in next, though, with a few more than 5,000 pupils than its northern counterpart, and with a pupil head-count of 73,957. The differential between the highest and lowest per capita fundings in this area, that is between Hampshire and Gloucestershire is 62p:

Name of Music Hub Area	per capita
Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly	£12.47
Devon, Plymouth & Torbay	£12.30
Dorset & Somerset	£12.73
Gloucestershire, Swindon & Wiltshire	£12.19
Hampshire	£12.81
Solent, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole	£12.72
West of England (Avon)	£12.26

Once again there are some interesting geographical differences in this region, ranging from Hampshire, whose country town, Winchester, is about 75 minutes by train from London, and Truro, which is nearly 5 hours away. Then, of course, there are the Isles of Scilly! I remember doing some CPD in the South West, and being told by a teacher to not forget it was a long way to Bristol for them, so this is another region where travel is an issue. 

The South East

Name of Music Hub Area	REVENUE  Allocation TOTAL (£)	CAPITAL Allocation TOTAL (£)	Revenue + Capital	Total Pupils	Total Schools
Bedfordshire & Milton Keynes	1,504,866	494,336	1,999,202	164,856	382
Berkshire	1,327,154	435,959	1,763,113	148,732	356
Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire	1,599,529	525,432	2,124,961	182,681	539
Cambridgeshire & Peterborough	1,209,563	397,331	1,606,895	129,232	345
Essex, Southend-on-Sea & Thurrock	2,536,546	833,234	3,369,780	278,657	670
Hertfordshire	1,672,854	549,518	2,222,372	194,282	523
Kent & Medway	2,648,822	870,116	3,518,937	290,328	699
Norfolk & Suffolk	2,015,172	661,967	2,677,139	218,894	750
Sussex	3,431,309	1,127,156	4,558,466	366,919	952
S.E Totals	17,945,815	5,895,050	23,840,865	1,974,581	5,216

This is another big area, and, for me at least, the coastal towns of Norfolk, Sussex, and Essex, seem a long way, literally and metaphorically, from the ‘dreaming spires’ of Oxford. Venturing out into the fens of East Anglia is another vehicular undertaking not to be taken lightly (or is that just me, again?). But there are also attitudinal differences, as well as availability of musical outlets. You can probably find most things, musically speaking, in Oxford and Cambridge, but the same may not be true throughout this area. 

Unlike fenland, some these areas are quite close to London. Indeed. Commuting is easily possible from some of them. Hertfordshire, for example, is one of these, along with Berkshire, and bits of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire being commuter-land too. This may also explain some socio-economic reasons for disparities in per capita spending in this region, as Hertfordshire has the lowest figure nationally, at £11.44, which is £1.84 lower than Lancashire in the North. 

Name of Music Hub Area	per capita
Bedfordshire & Milton Keynes	£12.13
Berkshire	£11.85
Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire	£11.63
Cambridgeshire & Peterborough	£12.43
Essex, Southend-on-Sea & Thurrock	£12.09
Hertfordshire	£11.44
Kent & Medway	£12.12
Norfolk & Suffolk	£12.23
Sussex	£12.42

The South East is often considered one of the more prosperous areas of the country, yet, as has been seen, this area includes the well-off areas, but also the more rural and coastal places further away from London. However, this simplistic overview belies the complexity of postcode level analysis, and lazy stereotypes don’t help thinking about where music education is needed. Some areas can be materially in good shape, but cultural wildernesses, and this needs thinking about, and this region exemplifies this. 

Location, location, location!

One thing I haven’t mentioned so far, but has come up in other research we’ve done at BCU, is that of availability of instrumental music teachers. It’s all very well in large urban areas finding a gigging oboe teacher, say, who is happy to do a few hours teaching. But as we progress into the more rural and coastal areas this is not always going to be the case. There is a lot more work to be done about location and locale, and this analysis is not the place for it, but is does warrant consideration.

Conclusion

I have written this document mainly to satisfy my curiosity. It is my attempt at scratching the surface of the ACE dataset to see what I can find. For this reason I have gone where I felt interesting. I claim no authoritativeness for this analysis, and no-one paid me to do it. I am sharing it with the caveats I mentioned earlier, and if it’s useful, fine, if not, you’ve only wasted time reading it!

I think it’s important to state that this is primarily my own personal quantitative analysis, and mostly a fiscal one at that. I am making no judgements as to whether this hub organisation (or reorganisation) is a good thing, or as to the efficacy of music teaching and learning in these new HLOs, and their constituent hubs. I know this matter has raised concerns, and opinions on this can be readily found on social media. Here, I have just taken a publicly available dataset, and ‘salami-sliced’ it in ways I found interesting. Other ways of slicing up this dataset, indeed myriad other ways are also possible, and so just because I haven’t done something is simply a reflection of what I wanted to do, nothing else, and others will doubtless analyse this dataset in a variety of different ways. I am saying this, as often after such an analysis someone will write to me and say “why didn’t you…” so can I please head this off by saying I haven’t – but that means nothing other than that I haven’t! 

Finally, I apologise for any errors and omissions, and for any statements that offend, that wasn’t my intention, but I know can all too easily be unwittingly done. I’m sure I’ll be doing some more digging in the coming weeks, but for the moment this is my initial thinking.

Thanks for reading.

On the transient illusions of freedom

I’ve been involved in some twitter/X conversations recently which have made me think about the specificities of being deeply rooted in a singular context. As part of my job (although I retired at Christmas 😊) I visited – and still continue to visit actually – many, many schools, and got to talk to teachers in lots of different contexts. One of the advantages of that was it gave me an overview of different glimpses of the same perspective. One thing I have always been struck by is how firmly rooted teachers are in their own contexts, and peering over the walls is really hard!

What made me think on this more recently is when I hear people say that, for them, in their context, SLT are great, listen to them, are respectful and supportive, and all is as well as it can be, and the music teacher can get on and teach what and how they like. Let’s call this person teacher A. For people like A, thinking outside the box of their own experience means they don’t know that just down the road, another music teacher has had the thumbscrews put on by SLT, can’t visit the loo without authorisation, and has to teach an 8-part lesson with compulsory ‘do-now’ silent starters, literacy writing five-minutes into part 4, and a recap with written feedback in part 8. This teacher, let’s call her teacher B, is just as good, musical, committed, and hard-working as teacher A, but has a thoroughly miserable time every day at work.

Then there’s teacher C, who has gone through everything teacher B is suffering, and is now basically being performance-managed out of the school, and, possibly, out of the profession.

Now it’s no good A saying to B and C “oh just be positive, everything will be fine – it is for me (smiley face)”, because it won’t be. 

I’m not making any of this up, by the way, can I say, these are real examples, and I have multiple instances of each (except the 8-part lesson, and visiting the loo, fortunately!).

I am not writing this to be full of doom and gloom for a Monday morning, but I have long thought that we systemically in music education ought to shout about what is good, yes please, as loud as possible, but also we ought not to rub the noses of our suffering colleagues in the mud by telling them to “be more like teacher A”, when what is really needed is for their SLT to be more like A’s.

Now, I may well get shouted at for being a doom-monger (again), but I do worry. All it takes is a change of headteacher, and the remaining SLT, chameleon-like, who were supportive of music suddenly aren’t, or an aggressive MAT stance provokes new things which aren’t helpful to music, and things can change almost overnight. So even for those with very green grass indeed, things might change.

What I am saying is, let’s try and remember our colleagues, and that whilst we may be doing well, and having a good time, others, doing the same things, are under the cosh, and they need our thoughts too.

Sorry for being grumpy, but all the unsolicited emails I get telling me things like this mean I feel I need to say something!

A chat with Music Mark

I chatted with Music Mark about my research, it can be read here: https://t.co/Pr3zjDabUJ

Thoughts on the recent Ofsted Report Main Findings 9/23

This is a blog entry in which I discuss the main findings section of the recent Ofsted report “Striking the right note: the music subject report”, which is available here.

In this blog, I start each bit with a quote from Ofsted, then offer my discussion and comments on this.

O: Music was taught weekly in key stages 1 and 2 in most primary schools.

MF: This hasn’t been my experience, but then it was the Ofsted one. This is why I talk to Masters and Doctoral research students about ‘multiple simultaneous ontologies’, as we are both right!

O: In a very small number of primary schools, pupils did not have enough opportunities to learn music in key stages 1 and 2. 

MF: As previous comment! Not my experience of ‘small’!

O: Inspectors found considerable variation in the amount of curriculum time allocated to music in key stage 3. In just under half the schools visited, leaders had not made sure that pupils had enough time to learn the curriculum as planned by the school.

MF: This I do agree with. The issue of “considerable variation” is a problem, and especially so when the time is inadequate. 

O: In most secondary schools, curriculum leaders organised the key stage 3 music curriculum into termly or half-termly blocks. These blocks typically focused on a different style or genre of music. In most cases, the blocks stood as isolated units. While leaders had considered pupils’ musical development in each unit, far fewer had considered their longer-term musical development across the key stage.

MF: This is another issue that has been bothering me for years. It was long ago that I coined term “Cooks’ Tour” for these sorts of schemes. Here’s an example where I worried publicly.

The issue Ofsted raise about musical development is an interesting one, and I think they are right to use the word ‘development’, although I will now do some head scratching (again) about the differences between progression and development, especially as Ofsted have a tendency to redefine words for their own purposes! But I think progression also matters!

O: In many schools, when considering the curriculum, leaders’ thinking focused on giving pupils a range of musical opportunities. In these schools, leaders often associated curriculum ambition with the range of activities offered. Fewer schools had considered ambition in terms of, for example, incrementally developing pupils’ musical knowledge and skills.

MF: In the past, Ofsted have talked about “doing more of less”, a sentiment I fully agree with, indeed, in the current Listen Imagine Compose Primary https://www.bcmg.org.uk/listen-imagine-compose-primary-2  work I am doing with BCMG https://www.bcmg.org.uk and Sound and Music https://soundandmusic.org we have made “do more of less” a key mantra of the composing work in the research project. 

O: In most schools, the weakest aspect of the curriculum was teaching pupils to become better at composition

MF: This has been the starting point for much of my research work over the previous years. Not only Listen Imagine Compose Primary mentioned above, but Listen Imagine Compose (Secondary)https://listenimaginecompose.com  too was established on this premise. Sadly I worry that this most central part of the music curriculum is being sidelined, and I also hear worrying cries from teachers saying to drop it as it’s too difficult. This, in my opinion, is taking us back to a bygone era, and I hope can be resisted. Sorry if this upsets some, but that’s what I think!

O: “…ongoing feedback…”

MF: I have written frequently about the importance of good formative assessment, and that, for me, is what this comment is all about. I won’t reprise my writings on assessment here, but they all follow this theme. 

O: In a few schools, leaders and teachers had a clear conception of what pupils should be able to do as a result of learning the curriculum. Crucially, leaders in these schools grasped what these outcomes should sound like.

MF: I have often said, “play me a recording of kids’ work in September of year X, then play me a recording of the same kids’ work in July year X+2 (or whatever), and the differences should be audible and apparent”. The key word for me in that Ofsted sentence is “sound”, this, for me, is where all our assessment efforts should be focused. Joseph and his Technicolor spreadsheets are all well and good, but what does the resultant music sound like? This strikes me as where we should be focussing attention.

O: In around half the secondary schools visited, leaders made sure that staff had access to subject-specific training.

MF: To put the boot on the other foot, this means that in about 50% of secondary schools they didn’t. This is worrying, and a job for music education hubs and MATs to address – although this response could be worrying too, as these may be variable, although I have zero evidence for that statement, which for a researcher is a concern, but, hey, this is my blog, I’m allowing myself my own opinions! Also intrigued that this might mean teachers aren’t going to exam-board training either, which in itself is worrying?

O: COVID-19 … Many schools were still in the process of re-establishing the extra-curricular provision they had previously offered.

MF: I am worrying that this could mean a ‘lost generation’ of musicians, we’re looking into this at the moment in BMERG at BCU, so more thinking in progress, with writings to follow.

O: There remains a divide between the opportunities for children and young people whose families can afford to pay for music tuition and for those who come from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

MF: This is hugely worrying, but hand-wringing alone won’t solve it. We need to think about what can be done, what it will cost, who will pay (as there aint no such thing as a free lunch), and how it can be targeted appropriately. I know there are some rose-tinted rear view spectacles about how things used to be better in ye olden dayes, but see Nigel Taylor’s recent piece for the ISM https://www.ism.org/news/the-microeconomy-of-music-education/ particularly the appendix, where he says “…the system was demonstrably inequitable, unfair, and in some cases prejudicial”. Well, quite! But that was then, this is now, so what can be done? 

O: “Many school leaders reported that in the last few years they had decided to reduce the extent to which they were subsidising instrumental lessons, because of wider pressures on school budgets.”

MF: I don’t think it’s fair to blame schools, which Ofsted isn’t, after all if the roof is leaking, it needs fixing! But, as previous comments, something needs to be done.

O: Approximately half the primary schools visited did not currently offer any instrumental or vocal lessons.

MF: This is worrying. What about National Curriculum entitlement? Should Ofsted be saying this is contrary to their statutory responsibilities, rather than just reporting it? Maybe that would carry more weight? And what about those schools who do not teach/offer music (both primary and secondary) but still get good Ofsted reports? This would be a place to start exerting pressure?

O: In approximately half the schools visited, there was a strong extra-curricular offer that included instrumental groups and choirs. In these schools, leaders valued these activities 

MF: But if we know that Covid has hit instrumental and vocal music lessons, then this has an impact. Another issue is that this relies on teacher goodwill, and if O are looking at curriculum, and SLT are worrying about curriculum, then music teachers can be told to focus on the ‘day job’. One secondary music teacher told me that their SLT had instructed them to focus on the curriculum, and stop X-curric as it was taking them away from “what matters”. This is an issue for some teachers. 

These are just my thoughts on the Ofsted report main findings, and this has taken over 1250 words. I know there are concerns about some of the data Ofsted cite, and also of the small sample size: “This thematic report draws on findings from 25 primary and 25 secondary schools” which is a tiny fraction of schools, and so we need to be wary of generalising from this. 

Anyway, these are my thoughts so far, doubtless there is more to come!

Cultural capital piece

Article by me in August 2023 Music Teacher magazine, where I discuss cultural capital and music education. Available here: https://www.musicteachermagazine.co.uk/features/article/access-and-inclusion-cultural-capital