Music for education & wellbeing podcast [44] TRANSCRIPT: Dr Ally Daubney & John Bergin
AH: Today, I’m talking with Ally Daubney, educator, researcher, evaluator and author in the field of music education, who’s well known to people working in the sector in the UK, and with John Bergin, who is CEO of Newham Music, one of the partners in the new East London Music Alliance and Music Education Hub. Why I thought you’d be interested in hearing from Ally and John is that for the past five years, they’ve been working together to research issues of participation, professional development, progression and sustainability in music education, and out of that has come what they’ve termed ‘a model for a rich music education ecology’. So thank you ever so much, and welcome both. I really, really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today.
JB: Thank you, Anita, thanks for having us.
AH: So just to kick off really, really briefly, would you like to introduce yourselves and tell me a bit about what you do?
JB: Okay. Well, as you say, I’m currently CEO of Newham Music. A previous life for me was an orchestral musician. I was with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for some years. I’m a fiddler by trade, but in that role, I discovered a passion for education, and I shifted into education full-time. And it’s been some time, I’ve been in education for 25 years. Very exciting, I’ve never looked back. And I will say my time at Newham Music really has been the pinnacle for me in terms of opportunity. It’s set up as some people may or may not know Newham Music, we are set up as an independent charity trust, and coming from a local authority, institutional background, that’s rather freeing. I find it really liberating in many ways, and many opportunities have arisen from that.
AH: Oh, thank you. John. Ally?
AD: Hi there. I’m Dr Ally Daubney. I’ve worked for a long time in either schools or university education, and also working with hubs and community organisations on different aspects of projects. I got involved in this particular work in Newham because I have a real family connection with Newham, in that both of my parents come from that area, historically from the war time. What I realised about two years into the project is that the building where Newham music were based previously, which was St Luke’s church, was actually where my grandparents got married. And so it’s, for me, it’s been a real kind of cultural heritage social trip down memory lane, and before which I’m always delighted about.
AH: Oh, that’s so lovely. So how did the project actually come about?
JB: Okay, I hope good ideas come from very simple, simple beginnings, and this was very much the case for this. It was very much that simple premise to encourage more music in school. We were keen to ensure our young people have the opportunities everybody should have what they deserve, however that may look for them. I will say it was also driven by Newham council who had a very strong desire to enrich young people’s lives through the arts and music, and therefore introduced peak grant funding programme for schools. It was from that premise, if you like, that our focus became, how do we support schools to make more music happen in ways that work for them? So it was as simple as that – more music in schools. How do we actually make that happen?
AH: Brilliant. And so you mentioned about funding. How was this funded?
JB: Well, the Council put together a funding, a total package, which is broken down into different devices, because it ranges from £2,500, the smallest amount, and goes up to £8,500 for every school in the borough. We’ve got 100 schools in Newham. Basically, it’s based on pupil numbers, and we set up a process that they could use this money to and I’ll use the word, but we’ll probably come on to this later, but in terms of enriching what they already do. And that’s the key underlining principle. What do you do now? What do you want to do next? And it was that sort of strap line, if you like, that was driven where we got to in them in these five years.
AH: Great. Okay, so why did you approach a researcher to help you with this? Think it’s brilliant that you did, and maybe you’re you could either answer that question now, or maybe you’ll come on to that later, because obviously there are a lot of ways to address a kind of a question or a problem like that.
JB: First one, the obvious one, it’s Ally. Ally Daubney. I know Ally’s work from many readings, and I didn’t know about the Newham connection. I will say that came later, but for me, what I did know was in terms of being funded by others, by Newham Council, we had to demonstrate evidence. It’s all very well saying music works. Music’s good for you. Music makes a difference. We all know that. But where’s the hard evidence? Because when it comes to money, people look for the hard evidence. What’s the impact? What’s the difference? So from the outset, I knew I needed to have that all important independent perspective that Ally would bring a wealth of experience from the national and international context, and also to ensure that any evaluation framework we set up was robust, the insights were clear, practical, and again, evidence based.
AH: Okay. I suppose that leads me on to my next question. Which was, can you tell me in very simple terms, what you set out to achieve with this work? What was the kind of research question? And you define this work as being as the output isn’t a new model for music education ecology. So did you start there, or was there a particular problem you were seeking to address?
AD: So the thing to describe, really, is that the evaluation is quite iterative. It’s been ongoing, kind of all the way through the process. We work with the schools, we work with the council. I’m always collecting things back from them. Though it’s about, I suppose, looking at the robustness of what works it’s also about identifying the journey and the process and being able to look at that critically with the team and feed that back into the process to kind of change things or adapt things. Any programme is dynamic, and this one started right before COVID. So the kind of dynamic flexibility that has had to come about through that, to have all of that just thrown at it as it was really starting to embed has meant that there’s been a massive kind of shift of direction of things. And what schools set out to do originally isn’t what they might have set out to do then in year two, year three, year four and year five. And I think that’s really healthy in terms of that adaptation and giving them, if you like, the permission to look at their own communities, to work with their own communities. So the model that we’re talking about there, and the idea of musical ecology, is kind of the culmination of that. So it’s thinking about a system or the conditions that support meaningful music enrichment. Enrichment means you have to have something there in the first place, enriching what is already there. For some schools that’s a lot, for some schools that was far less. And the idea really is thinking about engagement within and beyond the school and into the community. So it’s allowing all young people, and, you know, children, to flourish and to engage. And so how that’s come about and how it’s designed, implemented, evaluated, developed, sustained, evolved, is kind of all involved in this intertwining, ongoing journey really.
JB: Just to add to what Ally said, it’s probably worth mentioning, but the word ecology or ecosystem, it didn’t come into the thinking until year three or four, and we were noticing, and it was on, as Ali said, it was on the development of what was happening in the schools. What we were seeing were schools were taking, say, for example, year one, they would introduce a new set of instruments. Year two, they would introduce training for their teachers. Year three, they might go into a sense, specific focus, etc. What we found was as they developed programmes each year, they were keeping the programmes they introduced in year one and year two. So we had a building of programmes introduced three three years earlier, and then new programmes being added as the years went on. So this is where the ecosystem was building, and it was something we didn’t necessarily plan or expect.
AD: There’s something else there to about ecology in that if you just have a very short term amount of funding and a short term project, it’s very difficult to change minds, and particularly change hearts and change leadership. And what the five years has meant is that head teachers and senior leaders are able to look at and be involved in the change that they’re seeing. Then it takes the time, and then they start to value it, and then they don’t want to lose it in the next year. They want to move on, and they still want to do something for those children. And that’s really part of the ecology. So although if you want to call it seed funding, if you like that funding comes from Newham Council, actually part of the rich ecology is other resources from schools and other interests from schools being ploughed into that.
AH: In terms of the original question of, what did you set out to achieve? I suppose another way of putting it is, is, how did you sell it to schools?
JB: That’s a really good ask Anita, because we were challenged by it. It’s back to the simple approach. How do you make schools want to do something? And that’s where we were, I’m going to say exercised by the approach, and I mentioned earlier, we did make this very simple in terms of not about trying to prescribe what we wanted to see, but by asking schools very simply, reflect on what you’re doing already. Be it good. Be it not so good. It didn’t matter. Where are you at this point in terms of your music? And then they would reflect on that, and then we say, well, with this grant for next year, what would you like to do? And by keeping it as simple as that, it started the ball rolling. And the very obvious it was, Do you want some money coming into your school to be invested in music, and it was as simple as that. Then we built the understandings, the development, the story around that. But again, it’s back to the simplicity hook.
AD: I’d say also by giving people that accountability, because they make those choices for themselves, they therefore have to be accountable for it. If you say, I want X, Y and Z, Newham Music and their team and their partners have gone and out and worked with schools to help them get X, Y and Z, which was identified by the schools themselves. So there’s the idea of ownership, which is appealing but also scary to some schools, you know, oh, I don’t know what’s possible. I don’t know what I want. And that’s something else on this journey that you’ve seen change, whereas schools have looked at other things that are happening and gone ‘I want a bit of that’. I think the critical thing from my perspective, is that it was set up so well in the first instance, with this strong idea of accountability that I could probably count twice I’ve been into a school in Newham where the head teacher hasn’t found time to meet me, and that is so unusual. So I’ve met many of the heads now to talk about their music provision, sometimes with their children or with their senior team, but for them to actually take that interest themselves in the music education is really critical, because it’s not only about how do you spend your money. It’s about them recognising for themselves and twisting their kind of angle on looking at things to different directions and focusing in different ways. You know, what impact do you see that might be having on this group or this group, or what else do you notice? So that’s kind of how, from the beginning, that, from my perspective, worked very, very well. And with that, there’s an expectation that that keeps coming back. You know, there’s a re-application every year, and there’s a part in that form that says, What are you building on? And it’s getting, you know, people are now so invested. It’s so long, it’s so detailed, it’s wonderful because they they now know what the possibilities are. And that’s still growing too.
JB: It’s probably worth maybe just outlining the framework itself. And I will say Ally was wonderful. This is where she was so important from the get go, in terms of the research evidence base, because it’s all very well doing an evaluation after the facts, but you need to set the questions. You need to set it from the application process, and then you get a much more informed outcome. But very simply, as I said, it was reflecting, what are they doing? What are you going to do next? That was the basis of an application process. Yes, it was more complicated than that, but that’s the simple pretext, if you like. Then that was followed by and is followed by school visits, observation support visits, we call them, we see the work in action. We hear feedback from the school leaders, teachers and pupils, and then the evaluation phase itself, where we draw on the feedback, the evidence, ensure the funding is actually making a difference. And as Ali said, it informs the next phase of the planning, the next year’s programme. So that, in a nutshell, that was the framework, the application, the follow through support visits, the evaluation, followed with the report.
AD: Yeah, and I think within that, there’s also we’ve worked hard to help people to celebrate as they go through and that celebration aspect is really important within schools, within communities, and it’s helped bring communities together. There’s many examples, actually. There’s lots of case studies, if you like, internally, for ourselves, for learning and sharing back with schools that it’s helping to engage different communities within Newham and school communities, and part of that is being able to give permission to the schools to look outside the norm and not going, here’s 30 violins, everybody in your school will learn a violin. John, can you talk about some of the rich, unique projects I think, that have happened in Newham?
JB: Yeah, and that’s another developing story in terms of what happens when you allow schools to build confidence, when you sustain the funding programmes, rather than one, two or three years, you see much more ambitious tryouts from the school. They get more brave. They’re less afraid to try different focus areas. But one of the early adopters worked. Schools wanted to reflect their communities, their pupils. It’s a key aspect of any school. Schools do this, but this allowed them to actually say, I want to bring in the veena, the doll or the steel pans. I want to do much more digital. I want to do much more music technology. I want to and I would say one of the exciting developments, I know it will not continue unless I develop my own team, all my teachers, all the learning assistants. If I don’t develop everybody, there’ll be no sustainability in my school, so they’ve taken on different aspects. But I think it comes down to the programme has allowed ambition and risk taking to develop and become more notable as the years go through.
AD: That’s also immense. Looking at the music in the community and thinking about people coming into the music education workforce who might not necessarily fit the classical general mould, if you like, that you might find so I think there’s primary school with a veena orchestra. There’s various things that are happening where that has meant that people from the community have got involved and become trained as music leaders to be able to facilitate that, and that’s really helpful, because children often say it’s really nice to see somebody that I recognise in my music making. Something that I can relate to, and without that workforce, you’re bringing something that maybe doesn’t fit. So that’s been an exciting part of the journey too.
JB: And it’s directly affected the workforce, not just across Newham or individual schools, but for us at Newham music, because when the schools bring it in, let’s call them parents who play, who are wonderful musicians and whatever that is, quite often they just assume that they don’t fit into whatever they perceive as a music education mode. But what we’ve been able to do is bring them in, provide them with the support, whatever that may be, but to allow them to flourish. Because remember, the key qualification for any educator as well, probably two, one, you do need to be an outstanding musician. I believe you need to be an excellent practitioner, and to have that passion for working with young people. If you have those, you can do anything in terms as long as you get the right support. And we have a compared to a few years ago, we have a considerable number of our team have come from that background, through this programme, being identified through the community.
AH: That’s amazing, because there’s been quite a lot of talk, particularly when I was involved in the Changing Tracks programme led by Hertfordshire Music Service, we had lots of conversations about how current recruitment practices just don’t allow for many people to come into the sector, and we absolutely need those people in the sector now. But just wanted to ask, in terms of support, what was that support for those new and emerging music teachers, and how much team time did that take? Because I think that’s one of the challenges, isn’t it, to bring along those people. But when you’ve got very limited resources yourselves to actually deliver, how much time have you got to do the observation? Who did the observation and who did, was there one-to-one? What’s their kind of training set up? Yeah. How did that all work?
JB: In terms of supporting these wonderful musicians in the community, the most important thing for us, it’s about, how do we get one of their own community to lead the programme? And sometimes that’s just a matter of building their competence, if you like, we have a wonderful example at the moment, and I will say we did kick start this with support from the PRSSV [Institute of Performing Arts and Heritage] , an organisation that works with more global music, cultural musics, if I can put it like that, who are very keen on training community musicians that we call them, or I call them, the outstanding musicians of the world, and bringing them to the fore on an equal footing with everyone and but it has in terms of time, Anita, it has taken time in terms of, again, it’s like building up gradually, you start off with one or two, then you expand the team, but you make sure that their training is very much on the ground in teaching, pair teaching, very practically based, and importantly, not taking away from the pedagogical approaches that are in, you know, inherent in their their style of learning. And I will say, let’s be honest, the wonderful Master Guru approach, it’s the most musically way of learning. It’s it’s actually a very strong pedagogical way to educate our young people.
AH: Thank you. Can you summarise, I guess, if possible, what you found out through this or the areas where you found the most rich learning?
AD: What we didn’t do at the very beginning of the podcast was contextualise Newham. So for those people who don’t know, Newham is an inner London authority in East London. It’s kind of on the edges of inner London, I would say, just before it becomes outer London. It’s a population which is historically changed a lot over time. It’s the 12th most deprived borough out of 317 in England. And you can jump to conclusions, can’t you about places, but it’s now actually ranked fourth nationally for standards reached by pupils aged 11 in reading, writing and maths, and 17th nationally for outcomes at Key Stage Four. So there’s something in Newham that’s bucking that trend, and it’s very difficult, isn’t it to say that there’s causation with music, but there’s definitely some correlation. You know that music is actually growing, bucking the national trend on things like Key Stage Four uptake. So I suppose we start from there, don’t we? We think about the community and the people that we are working with, and if you start anywhere by putting children and young people at the middle and what do they want? What do they aspire to? What do they, what do they need, and what are their challenges? I think it’s that really that’s kind of sitting at the heart of it. In terms of what we’ve learned, we’ve kind of distilled that into the model that you were talking about, which is around creating a rich musical ecology that values and enhances Newham’s diversity involving cultural, economic and social contexts. And we’ve looked at the possibilities and the challenges and the model that we’ve put out recently to share kind of draws that together with looking at each thing as a kind of bipolar construct. You very succinctly talked at the beginning about the the cornerstones of the project, you know, things like the sustainability and the professional development. But it’s things like, how does your vision, what is it, you know, and is it transformative? And how does, what is the potential of that transformation? Have you got an accountability framework? If so, is it robust, and does it do the job? Does it think about what’s actually involved in your project? And there’s a series of these constructs, which are all kind of bipolar, things like sustained support, you know, is there sustained support, or is it kind of, here’s a bit of money go and get on with it, you know? So if each of these has got a sliding scale, if you like, between it, it’s a way of looking at a programme, thinking, where do you sit on that? Is there freedom to innovate, or are you given it? I think there’s many of those kind of things that underpin this. Are your leadership involved that’s obviously absolutely critical, and I think everybody knows about that, but being able to place it so firmly in the communities of Newham and giving the opportunities for the schools to be able to recognise for themselves where they want their musical journey to go, and think about why and what success looks like are absolutely critical.
JB: You know, I should add, I really never thought I’d ever get excited about an accountability framework. Really, when did that happen? But I think is important to remember that, you know, accountability is not a burden. It really isn’t, in this case, it’s very much a driver for thoughtful, intentional improvement. And one of the very, okay again, just the outcomes that appear as you go through a programme like this. I mean, music has gone right up the food chain in the schools through the accountability, because of accountability, and I even had, in fact, recently, one head teacher said, John, it’s the only time in the year that I take a moment, because I have to put in the application each year, I just take that moment to stop and think, what are we actually doing? What would I like to do? It just gives me that time, that precious thing that leaders, school teachers, they just don’t have time. So they welcomed the accountability framework, the need to report on what they were doing, because they said, it makes me think, it makes me think about the whole school and the difference I’m going to make with this.
AD: There’s a couple of frameworks in Newham as well. They’ve got their creative futures cultural strategy, which is a 15 year programme. And I think one of the things about music is it doesn’t exist naturally in a little box. It evolves with lots of other art forms. And so being able to give schools the help, if you like, to work together, and to be able to see different things, this started at the very beginning. John will talk about this, I’m sure, around the performance at the Royal Albert Hall, that was the first thing that I kind of got to know, and that brought together different communities and different art forms. John?
JB: Yeah, that’s back to the seeing is believing and celebrating. We were very fortunate. We had an opportunity to perform at the Royal Albert Hall. We brought 1500 young people. In terms of the impact, and it’s back to one of the key indicators, if you like, that we presented the evidence. It’s the celebration is about how schools are promoting, how Newham is promoting the difference it’s making for young people. But I will say when it comes to the funders, when you show them that they see the impact it has on young people. So yeah, I will say the other aspect we’ve mentioned it before, but autonomy for schools work as long as you have the accountability. But please give them autonomy. Please trust them in the decisions they make. You may not wish they took that direction, but you’d be surprised where that direction takes them, and it does work better. It really does. You get some exciting, innovative changes in schools, and some schools you least expect suddenly rise to the top with some exciting developments. I’m thinking of one school in particular, which has just become a real beacon of music. I will say five, six years ago, you wouldn’t have placed it there at all.
AD: I think also that Newham council have to take so much credit for putting their trust in their vision of being able to change things through culture. They’ve also got a community wealth building strategy where they’re really investing. They’re looking very closely at where they want Newham to go, and thinking about what are the skills that we need for the future, things that we’re starting to talk about again, but they’ve been talking about them for quite a while, and investing in this, because there is a recognition that you cannot have what you want unless you can grow that, and often you need to grow that internally, and to be able to give the young people of Newham the aspirations and the pathways for where they can take their talents and they can take their ambitions.
AH: And so you said that music has gone up the agenda for heads and in generally, in education in Newham, how much focus has there been on the non-musical benefits?
AD: Oh, that’s such a fascinating conversation. I could talk to you for hours. Yeah, because the really fascinating thing is, you know, a lot of things in music, over the last I don’t know, 15 years, have kind of pushed towards, we should really just be talking about the musical outcomes and, you know, shelving the rest and, and it’s like, no, why would we do that? And if you go in and you talk to a head teacher, you know, the beauty of it is, every community has its challenges, doesn’t it? And if you think about, what are those challenges? Often, they around mental health, around wellbeing. They’re around turning up to school. You know, there’s lots of this other stuff goes on. And very, very quickly, every single head teacher, when we say, you know, what do you notice about it? They will go very quickly to, often, very specific examples, actually, of pupils and broad brush things around resilience, about confidence building around the things that we know help us to get through life and to thrive in the here and now, and hopefully to thrive in the future. And I think the real joy of it, and I the bit that we’re talking about at the moment, about resiliency and tenacity within a specific context. How can you help children and young people to gain their skills and the confidence, if you like, to be able to transfer that into other contexts? So it doesn’t just sit in the music department in a lunchtime, but it becomes something that’s more widespread within their life and helps them within other situations. And that is, I think, where head teachers really see the value. Yes, they love having the musical infrastructure building. They love having a choir, a DJ in group, a this or that and the other music happening in and around their school. But they also really want the best for their pupils. And many head teachers have conversations about how the system of education doesn’t actually help that. And so this is something that’s really helping with that counter picture.
JB: And just to add to that, I mean, if you were to pick out, or you were to say, pick out three key growth areas over these last five years, very clearly in the provision of SEND music and SEND music at the early years. And I will say the professional development is the other aspect, but to have those areas becoming so big and so large because of this programme, they’re all linking that to the non-musical outcomes in the main so I’m thinking of one school, a couple actually, one school has rearranged its old timetable so they start each day for the SEND, for the 10 unit pupils, so that they can regulate better, so they can engage more in the lessons. Because it’s a very inclusive school in terms of the mainstream as well. There’s another school in particular, that’s looked used music, researched the community, and on the back of that, they insist with the evidence they use, the only change in their provision was the music, the additionality in the music, and they said that’s brought into their academy trust, not just in Newham, but across other local authority areas. And they said they’ve risen in terms of the scale of where they were the year. You’ve risen to the top of the scale in terms of the capital trust. And they put that down to the outcomes based on music. And again, these are non-musical outcomes. So it is very exciting. But again, it comes back to the schools taking ownership.
AD: I think if you if you give children and young people the skills and the opportunities to do something that then they invest more time in and they have fun with, you know, and the enjoyment itself is really critical to that, then it encourages them to want to, to do more. And honestly, Anita, if you came into one of the schools and sat, you know, while we’re talking to children and doing things with them about talking about music, and heard the excitement, and also tried to get them back to the maths lesson in time, say, 20 minutes, half an hour later, you would realise too how much they’ve got to say about the experiences they have, the friendships that they make, and how all of that helps them to thrive musically, to feel good about themselves, have something that they own and they’re good at, and that is so critical.
AH: You mentioned a few times about children’s agency, but we haven’t actually addressed it. And you’ve said about, you know, the schools being involved in being account, making the decisions and then being accountable. But can you just tell me briefly about the children’s involvement. Did you, was there as part of the funding, were you requiring schools to involve their young people in putting together these programmes?
AD: It changes over time, you know, because at the very beginning, when you want something to get going, you have to to work very carefully with the staff. But if your evaluation process very quickly involves the children, and once their involvement in it, then naturally, that lends itself to to children being in the driving seat. You know, I’m thinking of now one school in particular, a secondary school which put DJing into its offer. Its staff weren’t it skilled in this way, so they used their grant funding to bring in something that the young people in the secondary school had asked for. They trained the staff up alongside that so that it now is a unit within their own curriculum. So by knowing their young people and thinking about what do they want and what do they need, and then starting to draw the connections between what happens outside the classroom with what happens inside the classroom. And you know, you’ve got them, don’t you, when they want to do music inside the classroom, because they can see their skills growing, and they and the two things, they kind of feed off each other. And so having that relationship between just music, you know, not just music inside the school and outside the school, and putting the young people in the middle of that is absolutely critical. Giving children a voice to talk about music and to talk about their music is really, really important.
AH: I wonder how often, generally, across the UK, across the world, there are conversations in classrooms about how young people are experiencing their music lessons. I think it’s probably quite rare, isn’t it?
AD: Yeah, I’d like to agree with you, unfortunately, but I mean, a lot of that comes down… So we work with amazing professionals in schools and out of school, and they’re bound by time considerations. They’re bound by all sorts of other things outside. So if we try and little by little, nudge our teaching profession in a direction that gives them the autonomy, again, isn’t it, to go and ask those questions of their of their young people.
JB: But then, I suppose if we add in terms of, I will say another word that comes to mind is intentionality in terms of schools. So if we look at mental health, wellbeing, which we mentioned, yes, we know music helps you relax, it helps you feel better, but what we’re seeing now is schools are observing the responses they’re hearing. They’re getting the feedback from their pupils, and now they’re making wellbeing and music an intentional sort of development and how they deliver music. They’re using it for emotional regulation, you know, for enjoyment, calming before exam periods. So when you see that intentionality, you know, you shift from the it may happen into something that is going to make a natural difference. So I think the pupil’s voice is very strong, coming from the impact of the music on them being observed as well.
AH: That’s so fascinating to hear. I’m afraid we’re reaching the end of our chat. It sounds like there’s some fantastic learning coming out of this. And I just wonder, where are there any… So even from the kind of research questions that you’ve been asking the young people Ally, I can imagine that people could really find that valuable to look at those and even the case studies and things, but also the just that actual model. Is there anywhere people can find this, or are you planning to share this in future?
AD: I’d say at the moment, everything that we’ve done is for us internally, and that, again, has been a huge bonus to this project, that after six months you haven’t had somebody going I need to publish a report. Actually, the evaluation has helped the programme to grow and to thrive. I did recently publish the model, which was shared at the EAS conference with John, with the international audience.
AH: Was it the EAS conference? Sorry, Ally.
AD: The European Association of Music in Schools conference.
AH: And it’s on your your LinkedIn profile, isn’t it?
AD: It is. And that was just kind of testing the water, really, to see what kind of interest and people have been really interested. We’re interested, I think, in helping others, to help themselves. But that’s not to say with that you can pick anything up and put it down somewhere else.
JB: I’m going to say we work very hard not to publish anything. We didn’t want to come forward with, not evidenced approaches. And, you know, three years isn’t long enough for us, so that’s why we waited even for the European conference. This was our first I’m going to say, toe in the water in terms of producing and presenting evidence. In terms of resources, so certainly the framework, all the criteria, etc, that’s readily shared and available to anybody who wants it. And Ally, we made some short films as well, just to make it more accessible, they will be on the Newham music website as well.
AH: Oh, that’s brilliant. So basically, people should look on the Newham music website and keep an eye on that. So finally, I’d like to invite you to share three practical pieces of advice, or three takeaways from the project for the listeners.
JB: I’m going to come from my very practical head, and I’m very much a change merchant. But how do you make change? I’m very much into nudge theory and all that sort of thing. But actually, my takeaways would be, firstly, focus on influencing, rather than prescribing outcomes. Don’t go down that road of trying to achieve what you think you should be achieving, the factors up on trust the schools, they’ll shape their own vision. It’s, I think our role is more about guiding them towards meaningful improvement. How that might look for them. Also, you heard me say a few times, I think, keep it simple. Simplicity works. I really, really any complicated processes or frameworks I believe don’t work, and yet, please avoid schools don’t have time. And the other one is, be patient. Real, lasting change does take time. When schools are trusted and given the support, the results can be incredible.
AH: Thank you. Ally?
AD: So I would say, first of all, value and see the potential in your community, and think about the children and young people and investing in creativity. You know, investing in their creativity is absolutely crucial for them now and for us and them in their future. Much has been written about that in the past, but I do absolutely believe that that’s why I still do what I do. And then thinking about the you know, examine your processes and think about the Why? question, when you think about things like sustainability, think to yourself, do I really just want to sustain it, or do I want to evolve it? And I wanted to get completely off-piste to finish with, because I realised that we’ve got an amazing quote from a head teacher in Dersingham Primary School. “The Newham enrichment scheme has been running for five years in our local authority, and I think the best way to describe its progression is from strength to strength. This scheme is genuinely making a difference in the lives of children in our schools and in our communities. With initiatives like these, people often wonder, how can we measure the impact? But the real change we see is in the pupils confidence and the choices they now feel empowered to make. Music has become a transformative force for them, providing inspiration, confidence and hope. It offers them a platform to express their anxieties and fears in a way that’s channeled through creativity.” He goes on to talk about lots of other things, but I think that, you know, it really says first hand, doesn’t it? We put some trust into them. We give them the tools and the permission and the schools, the permission to go away and do something magical. And we’ve seen amazing things.
AH: Fantastic, and amazing for them to have you on that journey Ally, because I know how important it is to have somebody there who’s asking good questions and getting really good insights from the young people as well. It’s been fantastic talking to you. Thank you so much, and I wish you really the very best in developing this work in Newham and hopefully, maybe beyond. I’ll make sure that there are links to John and to Ally for people to get in touch with you, if they want to as well in the show notes on my website. So thank you both.