Case study on the impact of IOE research Music Education

<strong>Case</strong> <strong>study</strong> on the impact of IOE research
Impact of the research
Musical Futures
Some teachers were sceptical when
Musical Futures brought informal
learning to their classrooms. However,
their concerns were quickly dispelled
as soon as they started the work, and
the approach now has the enthusiastic
support of teachers as well as pupils. 14
The project has been recommended
by the Music Manifesto, 15 and the
Department for Education has made
it available to all schools through its
website. It has also been endorsed by
the singer-songwriter, Sting, the global
patron of the initiative.
Over the past few years, the number of
secondary schools adopting Musical
Futures has risen from fewer than
60 to more than 1,000. The ongoing
evaluation 16 by Professor Hallam and
Dr Andrea Creech has found that the
introduction of the Musical Futures
approach prompted a sharp rise in
enrolment for GCSE music courses. 17 It is
also said to have had a positive effect on
pupils’ behaviour and motivation levels
and boosted their confidence in their
music-making abilities.
In September 2008 Musical Futures
launched a network of ‘champion
schools’. These schools have developed
the initiative and now devise and
deliver free training for music teachers. 18
Musical Futures has also started to
spread overseas. Schools in Australia,
for example, are now introducing the
programme as part of a state-by-state
roll-out, beginning with 10 pilot schools
in Victoria. The work has also spread
to Brazil, where a network of schools
co-ordinated by the University of
Brasilia is adopting the Musical Futures
strategies. The Open University of Brazil
is also piloting a teacher-training unit
promoting the strategies. In the United
States, this groundbreaking approach
to music education has been adopted
by programmes such as ‘Little Kids Rock’
(www.littlekidsrock.org) and by the
Informal Learning Project conducted by
the Westminster Choir College of Rider
University, New Jersey.
Lucy Green’s writing on the benefits
of the informal approach to school
music-making had, however, begun
to make an impact in South America
and elsewhere even before Musical
Futures got under way. 19 Her influential
2001 book, How Popular Musicians
Learn: A Way Ahead For Music Education,
inspired a collaborative research project
between two Brazilian universities,
the Federal University of Bahia and
the Federal University of Rio Grande
do Sul. Her work has also been widely
discussed by music educationists in
the US. A symposium on her research
was held at the American Educational
Research Association conference in
2008 and the papers presented were
later published in a special edition of a
US journal, Visions of Research in Music
Education. 20 Other special issues on her
work have been published by the US
journal, Action, Criticism and Theory in
Music Education, and the British Journal
of Music Education.
Sing Up
Although Sing Up is undoubtedly a
collective enterprise, Graham Welch is
recognised as one of its architects. The
programme, launched in late 2007, was
partly shaped by the advice he offered
at the planning stage, and Professor
Welch was subsequently appointed
as its main research adviser. His team’s
evaluation findings have fed into the
development of Sing Up, which has
been adopted by more than 85 per cent
of England’s 17,000-plus maintained
primary schools.
Professor Welch’s contribution has been
acknowledged by Baz Chapman, the
programme’s director: “We believe that
Sing Up’s research needs have been too
complex and specialist to be carried
out by any but a very few researchers.
This is, for us, the ultimate research
partnership.”
Year of Music research
Professor Hallam’s review of research
into the cognitive, physical and
psychological benefits of music
was referred to by Ed Balls, the then
7