Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted

Hi!

Hope all are well.

Although my experience of bringing an informal, community-based music project into schools is quite limited, I have experienced enough to know when it isn't working.

I've worked with schools in the past who have fully embraced a project at the planning and bid submission stage..They posed for photographs with the local newspaper and supplied quotations for the press release which demonstrated what modern and progressive visionaries they were...Then the project started and the battle began!

 Exchanging Notes is great because it's all about the conversation and the effectiveness of the conversation. We felt that for our conversation to be effective it couldn't just involve the head or the department head, it had to be with the the teaching and support staff, the caretakers and the receptionists because these are the people who can ultimately impact upon the week to week delivery of the project.

We met the tutors at the school last week. It was a productive meeting on the whole but my spider senses detected in them a fear of the unknown..made worse by a high probability of an OFSTED visit in the Autumn. I'd be keen to hear how others are influencing schemes of work for year one or is it that you aim to influence this over time?

This is a great opportunity but there are going to be a few ups and downs along the way. Having the opportunity to share and learn from each others problems and solutions will be very beneficial for all of us I'm sure