Archive for the ‘Instrumental teaching’ Category
New report on the benefits of instrumental learning
It was good to see this report covered on the BBC website late last week. To my knowledge, the FMS has commissioned the first piece of evaluative work into the Wider Opportunities programme. It is an interesting study and well worth a read (although I can’t find the full report on the FMS website yet).
In some senses, there are no surprises here at all. The report endorses the Wider Opportunities approach to instrumental learning, even hinting that whole class tuition is as effective as small group tuition. On second thoughts, perhaps I should have been surprised by that if I reflect back over the longer term of instrumental teaching in schools?
Obviously, I’m a firm advocate for the benefits of a music education for all children. But I do worry that pieces of research/evaluation like this sometimes over-step the mark. I’m really not sure that claims about pupils’ self-esteem being raised through participating in Wider Opportunities, and the benefits that this has on their wider studies, can be validated in what seems like a short-scale evaluative study. Surely a longitudinal study of some sort is needed for that? But, the research seems to have been funded by the FMS, Yamaha and other musical groups so perhaps its findings are not that suprising. The key recommendations made be laugh out loud. What do you make of this selection:
1.2 Planning and programming of WO should be more open to input and decision making from children; Why?
2.5 Continued financial and resource commitment to schools and music services is needed to meet the rapid growth in demand for WO music provisions; No surprise there! Nothing like having a bit of research to back up your claim for more money from an ever-decreasing pot.
3.4 Strategic targeting towards broader improvement in initial teacher education for class teachers; Easy to have a pop at classroom teachers. We’ve seen that before fairly recently.
3.5 Encouraging greater parity of training and pay and conditions across music services; In other words, lets pay unqualified instructors the same as qualified teachers. After all, what’s the difference?
Bit cynical? Maybe. What do others think?
