Vocal Strategy

ST HELENS VOCAL STRATEGY 2022-2023

Mission Statement

Inspiring musical creativity for every child and young person we work with.

St Helens Music Service provides high-quality music education and performance opportunities that awaken and nurture talent and creativity, build self-esteem, and bring the joy of music to people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. They believe that it should be the right of every child to experience and learn about music and that singing is an essential and fundamental part of all music education.

Every child has a voice and singing is the most inclusive form of music making. As well as helping to improve memory and concentration, singing engenders a strong sense of teamwork and social bonding. It can promote confidence, self-esteem and emotional well-being, encouraging positive mood and a sense of achievement. Not only can children learn about all aspects of the school curriculum and the world around them through song, but fostering a love of singing can stimulate a life-long interest in music.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, and life to everything.

Without music, life would be an error.

Plato

Singing allowed me to express myself in ways that I wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

    Josh Turner

Scope of the vocal strategy

• Raise the profile and standards of singing across the borough
• Advocate for the importance and benefits of singing across all age groups
• Offer singing opportunities of the highest quality and promote best practice to develop high quality singing in all vocal activity
• Support schools to develop their own singing strategies
• Provide in-school support & delivery where necessary to improve or enhance existing provision
• Provide professional development for teachers in response to their needs
• Provide performance opportunities for choirs and singing groups
• Provide clear and identifiable progression routes for singing and signpost pathways for pupils to extend their skills regionally and nationally
• Integrate singing into the classroom and small group sessions
• Provide bespoke training for Music Service staff to enhance their vocal leadership skills
• Provide access & inclusion for all pupils, including disengaged and vulnerable young people, Looked After Children, pupils with SEND

National Context and Background

In 2011, the Department for Education published the first National Plan for Music Education, "The Importance of Music". This stated:

Our vision is to enable all children and young people to learn to sing, play an instrument and create music together, and have the opportunity to progress their musical interests and talents, including professionally.

Within the plan, Core Role 4 asked Music Education Hubs: to develop a singing strategy to ensure that every pupil is singing regularly and that choirs and other ensembles are available in the area. Children from all backgrounds and every part of England should have the opportunity to learn to sing and to progress to the next level of excellence if they wish to do so.

A refreshed plan, "The Power of Music to Change Lives" was issued in 2022:

Music is a cornerstone of the broad and balanced education that every child should receive. It touches hearts and minds, it celebrates and challenges, and it connects us and moves us.

This plan states that:

Singing is key to developing musicianship and will be a core part of the curriculum offer at primary. It is already a strength of many primary schools. In addition to dedicated curriculum singing time, some schools find that incorporating short bursts of singing into every school day works well. Assemblies also offer an opportunity to sing, as a whole school or in year groups, and to perform as a class or ensemble. Regular singing prior to and continued during instrumental teaching can support its success. Teachers should consider how pupils can progress their singing beyond the classroom, within and outside school.

Singing continues as a core element of musical learning in early secondary, building on the excellent practice in many primary schools. Secondary teachers need to give specific consideration, though, to the challenges for pupils through their early teenage years. Despite these challenges, good singing is nonetheless possible for all pupils in these years, with high-quality teaching and support.

In March 2021, the DfE also issued a non-statutory Model Music Curriculum for KS1-3, into which singing is embedded as a key area of learning, crucial to the development of musicianship. This document also recognises that singing is a great strength in the primary sector and aims to support and widen excellent practice across the country.

Local Context

The Metropolitan Borough of St Helens is a one of six constituent local government districts with borough status in Merseyside. It is a place with a strong identity and cultural history, rooted in its world-famous industrial heritage. The borough, characterised as predominately white British (96.6%), has areas of significant deprivation, and there are high numbers of children in care. The total school population is about thirty-three thousand young people attending fifty-four primary, infant and junior schools, one nursery school, nine secondary schools, three special schools, two pupil referral units, and two post-16 colleges.

St Helens Music Education Hub

St Helens Council Music Service is the lead partner in the St Helens Music Education Hub, and it is part of the Local Authority's Schools Team. The Hub is overseen by a board, which is made up of partners and local stakeholders and is currently chaired by one of the Head Teacher representatives.

A key area for the Hub's Business Plan 2022/23 is to commission a new singing strategy to reenergise

and reengage schools to do more and better singing. The focus is on developing capacity, and the skills both of hub staff and of staff in schools, and to encourage schools to restart choirs and singing groups post-pandemic. External projects and events which have been traditionally organised by the Hub will mostly continue in some form, especially where schools have communicated how they value them, together with other opportunities to celebrate singing in schools.

St Helens Music Service is a key member of the Merseyside Music Education Hub Alliance (MMEHA), an alliance of people and organisations working together to transform support for children and young people's musical progression in the Merseyside City Region and Borough of Warrington. The formal partnership of the MMEHA has been welcomed by Arts Council England, and the organisation works collectively to enable high-quality inclusive and safe opportunities in music education across the city region. As such they work in partnership to deliver the following strategic priorities:

• Enabling access to high-quality music-making opportunities for the most disadvantaged children and young people in our city region.
• Working collectively to enable an outstanding workforce in music education for our city region.

The Alliance was formed with the aim of supporting hubs to deliver the core and extension roles of the National Plan for Music Education through collaboration and partnership. It seeks to improve the music-making opportunities for all children and young people across the city region, both by individual hub activities but also through the range of external partners and additional funding the Alliance can bring together.

St Helens Music Service also plays a key role in the St Helens Cultural Education Partnership, CultureED.  St Helens will be the Liverpool City Region Borough of Culture 2022-23, and this will act as a springboard for lots of activities, including a new choral and orchestral commission and the "Lost in Music" project, which will focus on musicals and film music.

Current Situation

This Vocal Strategy lies within the context of the Music Service emerging from a pandemic, during which the restrictions of Covid 19 had a substantial impact on singing, which was severely limited over many months, together with significant staffing changes. It is a working document and will be reviewed on a regular basis, but initially has three main areas of focus:

Encouraging schools back to singing, to improve the status of singing by:

• Raising the profile of singing across the borough
• Promoting and re-establishing a strong culture of singing in all schools and educational settings including SEND and alternative provision
• Encouraging each school to establish a regular choir or singing group
• Offering advice to schools on creating a vocal strategy/departmental vocal plan

Developing the workforce by:

• Up-skilling existing and new Music Service staff to lead singing through opportunities to share practice, peer-to-peer observation, shadowing, coaching and mentoring
• Giving advice and guidance to schools about resources, signposting & networking opportunities
• Providing CPD to increase confidence of specialist and non-specialist MSL to deliver high quality singing
• Offering advice and guidance to schools to achieve accreditation and recognition for higher standards reached (Music Mark)

Providing Performance Opportunities by:

• Organising singing events for all Key Stages which are free and open to all schools
• Promoting opportunities for school choirs both to perform and to listen to others
• Offering opportunities for pupils to join a range of Music Centre choirs and signposting them to further pathways where they can extend their skills

Current Provision

The Music Service recognises that existing provision has been limited by the capacity of staff to deliver vocal workshops, projects and singing CPD. Many of the events currently offered to schools take the form of established performance opportunities, or ones which will be reinstated following the pandemic, and which are linked to CPD.

However, post-pandemic, new appointments have been made and throughout 2022/23 the Music Service has put a mentoring programme in place to up-skill staff to lead singing, through opportunities to share practice, peer-to-peer observation, shadowing and coaching. Over time, it is hoped that this will increase the vocal opportunities which can be offered to schools. Where capacity is not yet currently available, the Music Service will look to bring in external partners to help with provision.

It is also vital to ensure that the delivery of singing both encourages progression, and has the development of vocal ability at its heart. To this end, work with hub staff will also focus on this, so that they are better able to demonstrate this to schools and to advise on suitable repertoire.

For 2022/23, established provision is as follows:

Choirs and Vocal Ensembles

• The Music Centre offers two vocal ensembles: the Junior and Youth Choirs.
• Singing is embedded as part of Rock School.
• Both groups are free of charge and non-auditioned and are therefore open to pupils from across the Borough.
• The Music Service runs regular holiday courses, into which singing is embedded.
• If schools wish, the Music Service is also able to provide tutors to set up and run choirs within schools, providing engaging repertoire and opportunities to take part in concerts.

Performance Opportunities

• Schools' Christmas Sing is for Key Stage 2 and Secondary School Choirs to prepare for and perform in a traditional carol concert at the Parish Church in St Helens. There is no cost for schools to take part and it provides an excellent opportunity both to develop singing in the school as well as being able to join with other schools in a traditional celebration of Advent. The massed choir is accompanied by the Music Service's Youth Orchestra and a CPD session is offered for all choir leaders involved.
• Every year, Early Years and Key Stage 1 classes are invited to take part in SongFest, an engaging, themed performance opportunity which supports elements of the music curriculum, schools' vocal programmes, British Values and PSHE curriculum. The Music Service provides all the resources and schools are prepared for the event through a CPD session and in-school workshop, with schools then coming together in a song sharing event at the Town Hall.
• Lost in Music is free to KS2 and Secondary school choirs and in 2022, will focus in music from the stage and screen for a series of performances at the Town Hall. The project opens with a CPD session in the Autumn Term followed by workshops with each choir to prepare the songs. In the performance, choirs are accompanied by the Music Service's Youth Session Orchestra and secondary school vocalists are also offered an opportunity to perform solos.
• Every secondary school choirs is invited to perform on the bandstand at Victoria Park for Armed Forces Day, which takes place on a Saturday towards the end of June. This is a day for St Helens to unite to celebrate the work of the Armed Forces and it is a fantastic opportunity for Secondary school choirs to come together and listen to each other sing. The Music Service's vocal team provides a CPD session for choir leaders in the spring term to discuss suitable repertoire for the event and to offer support.
• The Music Service launched a Festival of Choirs in the Spring of 2019 and it was a huge success and this will be reinstated in 2023/24 following its suspension during the pandemic. The aim of the project is to give choir leaders, or any school staff wanting to launch a choir, the support and development they need. Choirs will come together in Spring for a song sharing event in the Town Hall to perform in front of each other and adjudicators. The festival is a non-competitive celebration of children's singing supported by a personalised programme of CPD throughout the year for all choir leaders taking part.

Training

The Music Hub recognises the role that high quality CPD plays in providing the best outcomes.

• All performance opportunities listed above have bespoke CDP linked to them, which is also open to schools not taking part in the event itself. This is currently provided free of charge.
• The Music Service runs established termly network meetings for Primary Music Co-ordinators. These meetings are open to all schools and provided free of charge and have a core of regular attendees.
• Secondary network meetings are also run termly and provide useful forums for music teachers to share good practice, introduce new ideas and discuss the important developments that are happening in music education. These meetings also offer a professional support network for secondary music teachers and are led by music specialists from the Music Service Team who have experience working as secondary music teachers. However, it is recognised that it is more difficult for teachers to attend on a regular basis.
• Training about singing is embedded into CPD provision for hub staff.
• Free training sessions are held throughout the year on Charanga Musical School and these are open to both music specialist and non-specialist teachers.
• Singing is also an important part of the 'Delivering the Music Curriculum' CPD and bespoke training to support singing in schools/the classroom is available to any school on request.
• Specific CPD sessions are run centrally on a termly basis, covering different aspects of singing.

Small Group Teaching and Wider Opportunities

• All Music Service staff are encouraged and supported so that singing is integrated into all individual and small group teaching.
• Singing is also embedded into the curriculum for all Wider Opportunities /WECET classes and the continuation provision of Play On and Play On Plus.
• All staff have access to resources on Sing Up and Charanga.

Vocal Workshops

• The Music Service offers bespoke six-week singing projects or WOW Days for both Primary and Secondary, allowing pupils to explore and experience a set of songs from a particular musical tradition or genre, such as Gospel or African songs.
• Song writing can be used to support many areas of the curriculum or as a self-contained activity in its own right. The Music Service can accommodate small groups within a class or larger collaborative projects to produce a series of songs either over six-weeks or a WOW day. Work can be themed around any topic or stimuli to support other areas of school life. Lyrics can be created by the children whether as part of the project or by the class teacher as part of their literacy lesson.

Early Years

• The Music Service has written a comprehensive scheme of work for Nursery and Reception pupils, in which singing plays a central role.

Resources

• The Music Service encourages all primary schools to purchase Charanga Musical School, an online resource to help teach the Primary Music Curriculum, and in which singing is central.
• Any resources for performance opportunities are currently provided to schools free of charge.
• Advice to schools on suitable singing resources is always available.
• An online resource of recorded songs has been developed for Nursery and Reception children and to support Musical Tots and Bumps.

Links to the Community

The Music Service runs the Sound of Mind Choir, which is sponsored by St Helens Mind. This is an independent local charity working with people living in the Borough, who are aged 18+ and who experience distress or isolation because of mental health difficulties.

The Music Service is also commissioned to run a choir for the Friends - Play for Disabled Children. The group is aimed for full families that benefit from the help and support of the Friends - Play for Disabled Children charity, to come along and sing.

The Head of the Music Service is also working with the NHS and health providers through Sing Up at developing singing for mental health strategies and resources. These will eventually come to fruition as part of a young peoples Arts on prescription programme

Statement about EDI

St Helens Music Education Hub's has an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion strategy which will be continue to be developed over the coming year to further support and widen the engagement and progression of young people from a diverse range of socio-economic and geographical groups as well as those from the range of protected and under-represented groups currently here in St Helens.

The Hubs is committed to providing accessible, safe, welcoming and inclusive services that enable all children and young people to engage and thrive as musical learners. With a vocal inclusion policy that Every Voice Counts, there is a strong commitment to provide children and young people in special schools with the opportunity to make music together and widen music making opportunities and to provide progression routes for children and young people with special needs to attend.

Plans for Future Vocal Development

The Music Service has specific future plans to raise the profile of singing across the borough, to help schools to develop singing in the classroom and to create a culture of singing across their schools. In the Autumn term, the Music Service will hold a session for Head Teachers to inform them about the new National Plan for Music. This will also be an opportunity to lay out what it support it is able to offer schools in order for them to develop their own singing strategies and school music development plan.

All schools are encouraged to complete an annual Music Improvement Development and Support (MIDAS) self-assessment, which is carried out via Music Mark, the UK's subject association for music education. This provides vital data about what music is taking place in each school, with specific questions about singing, including how often children sing communally and in class, and highlights where good practice is embedded or emerging. This in turn helps the Music Service to target further support by undertaking an audit of needs for each school.

As one of the long term aims is for every school to have a regular choir or singing group, supplementary questions as part of data collection, will help the Music Service to create a more accurate picture about how many such groups currently exist. This in turn will inform future planning to encourage schools which have not yet established such groups to do so.

Future support for choirs and singing groups in schools will continue to be enhanced by network meetings, and in particular by the Summer Festival as part of the Borough of Culture 2023, which will be a celebration of schools' music, with the intention of leaving a strong legacy. The Music Service also wants to establish a two year plan for a Singing Festival: the first year will focus on setting up choirs or singing groups and on repertoire while the focus of the second year will be on conducting skills. Both years will include CPD and support visits to schools.

Further Short Term Plans include:

• Building numbers for existing Music Centre Choirs
• Offering Vocal Health CPD for all teachers
• A Secondary Vocal Project to bring together school choirs, planned in conjunction with Edge Hill University
• Organising a Festival of Choirs in 2023/4

Medium Term Plans include:

• An on-going need to encourage Boys' Singing, possibly via a Cambiata Project
• Developing a Young Singing Leaders' Programme, possibly involving students from Edge Hill

Long Term Plans include:

• Establishing transition projects for pupils moving from EYFS to KS1, KS1 to KS2, KS2-KS3
• Encouraging a programme of Singing Ambassadors to help promote singing within schools
• Re-establishing singing provision for preschool: babies and toddlers
• Engaging with the Royal Opera House's Create and Sing projects
• Expanding the range of Music Centre Choirs

What Does High Quality Singing Look Like?

• Singing with together in unison, with confidence
• Singing in tune
• Singing with clear enunciation
• Singing with focus and engagement
• Singing with musical phrasing & expression
• Singing in parts
• Singing with a good understanding of posture and basic vocal technique
• Singing in different languages (including BSL)
• Singing a range of genres and styles
• Singing with a sense of ensemble and an ability to follow the conductor
• Communicating both musically and with emotional meaning and expression
• Good performance and presentation skills

Positive Outcomes of Singing - It Eencourages:

• Musical learning
• Creativity
• Aural perception, communication, language skills
• Development of literacy skills
• Development/improvement of the voice as an instrument
• Special reasoning and mathematical performance
• Intellectual development
• Social cohesion & inclusion
• Empathy and emotional intelligence
• Improved well-being
• Personal development and self-belief, improved self-esteem and confidence
• Social behaviour and teamwork