What's on offer for disabled young people to progress in music?

I'm currently advocating for progression routes within SEN/D and music in a series of events across the country (see my previous blog)

One such event was the recent 'Taking Off' conference organised by Sound Connections and I was invited to do a provocation around the subject of progression. Now, having never done a provocation before, I tried to get into the spirit of the activity with a intentionally robust title: 'Should disabled people bother with accreditation and assessment?'. Of course the answer is a resounding 'yes, if that's your choice' - but with the implication within the title that there are currently limited opportunities to do so due to a number of barriers.

So, following the provocation, a group of music educators crowded round to take this debate further for 20 minutes. Here's a summary of the key outcomes of that discussion, but as you'll see, it all centres around 'The Offer':

1. The opportunity to progress in music is a right for every young person. The ideal scenario is that we get the offer as fully inclusive as possible and then people can simply choose yes/ no based on the route they want to progress as a musician. At the moment that choice isn't realistically there in many cases.

2. To get the progression offer more inclusive, we need a trained, enthusiastic workforce to match.

3. The offer has to be improved in two ways: improve the accessibility of existing assessments, accredited music courses and grade exams etc; and develop completely new models which are inclusive and accessible at the point of use e.g. around the creative use of music tech in performance.

So, three very useful principles for the sector to get behind.

To extend the conversation a bit further…What would you have said if you'd been part of the discussion at our table? Do please add a comment for me to add to the mix!