Music Forge Inclusive Ensemble - a study in tenacity!!!

This post is about Northamptonshire Music Education Hub’s "Inclusive Ensemble" initiative - part of our Fund B “Music Forge” programme – developed in partnership with Friar's Academy (SEN/D school, secondary level) in Wellingborough. It describes how our relationship with the school and the young people has developed over time, and draws some conclusions about what’s made the project work so successfully for all involved over the longer term.

 

 

Since 2014, we’ve been steadily building a strong, dynamic and sustained relationship with the school which takes on children and young people with moderate learning difficulties from the ages of 11 to 16. Although the school, as a specialist sports academy, has a strong sports outlook, it did take the step a few years ago of appointing a Head of Music, Louise Dorrian. Louise, who has been at the school for a number of years now, and previously a Head of Music at a mainstream school in Corby, has been gradually increasing the profile of music in the school both in and out of the classroom… and we’ve been pleased to be able to bring our Musical Inclusion Team members into the fray and support some of the extra-curricular developments.

The end point of this year’s activity with the school - and to some extent, the high point of the past few years - has been our Music Forge “Inclusive Ensemble”. The group comprises members of our Musical Inclusion Team:

- vocalist, Anna Marie Whittaker Johnson - guitarists and songwriters, Jon Kendall and Greg Coulson - drummer/percussionist, Joel Barford - and, later on, also Emily-May Roebuck who took on the responsiblity of putting the brass players through their paces.....

collaborating with 14 young people from across all age groups in the school in a mixed ensemble of singers and instrumentalists. Two of the group have now shifted to drums and guitar respectively, there is a rather reluctant, occasional keyboard player… and from time to time the group has its own horn section in the form of some students from Year 7 who have been learning brass instruments, starting back on a First Access project when they were at primary school – Rowan Gate Special School, also in Wellingborough.

The final performance of the year took place at The Royal and Derngate Theatre in Northampton as part of The Festival, a major performing arts festival for children and young people across the county, when the group performed their own song, “I’ll Be There For You”. All members of the group are undertaking Arts Awards (11 Discover and 3 Bronze), using their ensemble and songwriting work as evidence. The year finished with a recording session led by the Musical Inclusion team to capture their achievements for posterity!

Now… to some extent, the current iteration of the project and its outputs are nothing unusual. However, the road to this point hasn’t always been straightforward, and the outcome by no means guaranteed.

Our first contact with the school came about in around 2014, when we were contacted to see if we could provide guitar provision for some of the school’s pupils who are looked-after. The lessons were taught by Jon and funded through Pupil Premium Plus. This initial set-up continued for about a year or so, during which time we would have the occasional conversation with Louise about future directions of the school’s music work. A couple of years ago, Louise said she was interested in getting a rock club started. The school had invested some funding in new instruments and she was looking for some teachers from NMPAT to lead the sessions. Unfortunately, at the time – bearing in mind we were already well into the academic year – we weren’t able to secure the services of any musicians with enough free time. We explored a number of different scenarios, but nothing quite seemed feasible at the time for a whole variety of reasons.

At the same time, we were also being approached by Jan Hall, Music Coordinator at Rowan Gate, about some of her Year 6 pupils, due to move up to Friar’s in the following year, who had displayed some notably musical talents, that she felt ought be nurtured further…  as well as a group of students who had started learning brass instruments as part of Rowan Gate’s First Access programme… which she similarly felt really needed to continue past First Access as they moved into Year 7 and into their secondary school.

We felt there was some potential here to bring a number of different strands together. So, in the Summer of 2016, we decide to throw caution to the wind and organise a joint music making session bringing the Year 6 students up from Rowan Gate, to work with the Musical Inclusion Team, together with students already attending Friar’s.

With around 30 children in Friar’s School Hall… all of them with some sort of learning disability…. we embarked an epic afternoon of music-making… the high point being a performance of “Hold Back the River” accompanied by a room full of guitars, ukulele’s, handheld percussion, vocalists, keyboard players, drummers, and… of course… the brass section… plus a few spontaneous break dancers!

Despite the success of this particular venture, when we all came back after the Summer break, it proved difficult to pick things up again. Some of the new students at Friar’s were taking time to settle into the new environment…. the brass pupils weren’t sure they wanted to continue (e.g. “Oh, we already did that in primary school!”).  I had mentioned the initiative several times at meeting of the Hub Delivery Partners, and it was beginning to get to the stage when I believe some colleagues were becoming quite sceptical that anything was going to happen at all!

But everyone persevered…. and when I popped over to see the “Inclusive Ensemble” in the Spring Term of 2017, and saw them in the process of putting together their own version of a song by The Vamps, “Wake Up”….. things definitely seemed more on track…  progress was being made… especially crucial at this point, since we had already signed up – and paid for –involvement in The Festival!

In conclusion, whilst the journey to the big day at The Royal and Derngate hasn’t always been a straight path, there seem to be a number of factors that have contributed to a successful outcome. Some of these have been:

 - the professional skills and flexibility of the musicians involved… all of whom are primarily performers out in Northamptonshire and the region earning a living gigging. Their approach contributed tremendously to generating a feeling for the young people that they were taking part in professional music-making, rather than “just” being “educated”;

- the tenacity of the school music staff at Friar’s and Rowan Gate, Louise and Jan, to get the best deal out of the Hub and The Music Forge project for their young people;

- the open and ongoing dialogue and discussion between the Music Forge project managers, school staff, the Musical Inclusion Team, and the young people themselves, that ensured everyone involved was absolutely focussed on giving their best;

- a belief held by all the adults taking part, that the young people could progress to a standard on a par with mainstream groups… giving these young people the same opportunity as their peers in mainstream, and not unnecessarily “dumbed down” to accommodate their “special needs”. In fact, at the final recording session, it was a delight to see how seriously the young people took the process and how focussed they were in getting each take as perfect as they could make it;

- and finally, committing to the relationship with both the school and the young people over the longer term. This has enabled things to develop organically and, most crucially, at a pace that suits the young people. It’s also enabled them, gradually over time, to feel more and more comfortable with, and trusting of the musicians and, because of this, have increasing input into the direction of the work.

As part of our external evaluation of the Music Forge project, one of the sessions – a “dress rehearsal” just before a performance for an end of term school concert – was observed by one of our external evaluators. The observation report concluded:

“You can be proud of the results here. To actually produce a polished performance of a song accompanied by a good quality band involving students would be a very good result but to have taken this further by encouraging and developing their own composition which was a well-structured attempt is outstanding.  Well done to all of you!”