The Right Foundation

Founder and Principal of The Voices Foundation, Susan Digby OBE, talks about her inspiration.

Fifteen years ago when The Voices Foundation was founded, we felt we were a lone voice. Music had been part of the National Curriculum since 1988. But an Institute of Education study in 1992 revealed that this had made little, if any, impact on the standard and quality of music education received by the average primary child. Moreover, singing in the community, in schools and even in elite choral establishments, was in alarming decline.

My own nine-months 'feasibility' study, prior to forming The Voices Foundation, revealed a patchy picture. There were isolated examples of outstanding practice around the country. But national bodies were focussing mainly on the secondary sector. LEAs and Music Services displayed a startling disparity in supporting curriculum music in their primary schools. There was little focus on singing for curriculum purposes; repertoire was lamentably thin and pedagogically inappropriate. There was no cohesive 'singing strand' embedded within the support structure. Coupled with all this was a general political environment in which literacy and numeracy were obsessively paramount. The John Major government established new 'pillars of education'. with strong emphasis on the 'vocational' and sport. It is illuminating to compare this with the mediaeval quadrivium: the established 'pillars of education' in the great universities of Europe some 500 years ago were arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and...music.

Political will

Since 1992 I have worked with successive Secretaries of State for Education, from John Patten to Gillian Sheppard, David Blunkett to Charles Clarke, resulting in varying degrees of involvement with their adminstration. The path has been fascinating. The range from patronising nod to full-scale involvement (Charles Clarke took a day to visit our pilot school and then funded a one year 'primer' for us across the country, with evaluation) reflects a substantial shift in political thinking and real support.

In 2003 I was invited to join the Music Manifesto working group and in this respect, I fully supported David Miliband's initiative from its conception. This unique document, published in 2004, has provided the focus out of which singing has now become a driving force. Everything is now in place for us to become the envy of the world, and our new Secretary of State, Ed Balls, shows every sign of supporting this drive. We are now riding the early stages of a renaissance of voice-based music education in schools, and singing in the community.

I have often wondered what compels me to want to transform people's lives, particularly the vulnerable, through singing. For as long as I can remember (the age of three),

I have been a musican, both as a perfomer and as a listener. My father took me to sing with him in the local church choir when I was nine. At the age of 12, I developed an intense interest in child psychology and pestered him to buy me books on the subject. I was also prone to befriend lonely and unpopular girls at school!

This combination has created an unstoppable advocate for the essential role of 'musicianship' (this requres careful definition) in developing the rounded, balanced human being of wisdom, personal integrity and fulfillment. This is behind everything The Voices Foundation and its phenomenally talented workforce stands for.

The Voices Foundation

We go into schools and we make it happen. There are three fundamentals that differentiate us:

1. We work with every child and every teacher (i.e. the entire community) in a school: essentially the 'uninitiated'. Teachers are placed in the same learning situation as are the children. Class teachers learn to deal with curriculum music with comparable confidence, skills and resources as they deal with literacy and numeracy.
2. Our philosophy is to nurture the 'weakest link', teacher and child alike. The rest will take care of itself. No one emerges diminished by the experience. Most traditional learning involves failure. This is not necessary to elevate standards.
3. We set the very highest standards- no mitigations. In a learning environment, it is essential to obviate boredom and to set achievable challenges inclusively. If you can engage every child in the classroom in this way, behaviour becomes manageable, concentration and self-esteem rises and general academic standards can be vastly improved. If a child 'fails', it is due to insufficient or inappropriate preparation on the part of the teacher.

Success stories

If we follow this pedagogical philosophy and match it with excellent teaching, the 'right' methodology and outstanding materials (i.e. repertoire),

we can set and meet the same expectation with an elite, 'talented' group as with a group of mixed ability (including special needs, socio/economic disadvantage). These principles derive from years of practice and experience, not from theory and ideology.

So look at the picture now. The Voices Foundation has run projects in hundreds of schools, with a combination of the 'Rolls Royce', in-school, full whammy program (minimim one year) and intensive, thorough training courses for specialist and non-specialist primary teachers ( I am reluctant but obliged to make this distinction - would you have such a distinction in literacy or numeracy?). We have trained around 10,000 teachers and reached as many children as they have (half a million). The government has gradually enriched our sector in many important ways. We have far more money available (access is an issue) for our sector than ever before. Singing is now at the core of the National Curriculum for Music (from 2001). Choral and community singing is flourishing again. The BBC Choir of the Year, which I have been closely involved with since its inception, both developmentally and as adjudicator, has seen tens of thousands of singers, increasingly young, compete throughout the UK and Northern Ireland. My chamber choice, Voce, has a waiting list. All LAs now have singing strands. TV programmes have sprung up highlighting this phenomenon. Neuroscience and general pedagogy studies are reinforcing the impact and importance of music on the development of the brain and mind. David Miliband kick-started the Music Manifesto, a tremendous endeavour and unique in the world.

It's not yet Utopia, but if we do not use these positive developments to our advantage to create a psycology of success, we are fools.

Teaching with confidence

We will always be a vulnerable sector and suffer funding shortages and job losses and have to fight our corner. But the key to pre-empting another Dark Ages is to ensure that the current generation of nursery and primary children do not perpetuate the stigma that music is the domain of the talented few. And we are on the way to achieving this. Music must be taught at primary level with the same confidence, skills and resources as all core subjects. The case for a voice-based approach need not be stated here. It is well documented. But it is important to stress that, through the voice, the 'ear' and all the basic musicianship skills can be developed. There is no conceivable complete music education without the use of instruments. But the voices must come first - and early.

I believe, although I'd like to commission a neurological study to investigate, that music training affects the hard wiring of the brain between conception and puberty. Experience has shown me that behaviour and thinking changes when musical intelligence and musicianship skills are developed.

What we have learned from the great Hungarian music pedagogues is that we must respond to the windows of opportunity that present in a child's development with the right discipline (as in subject),

the right methodology and outstanding teaching. If we allow the musical intelligence, one of every human's mutliple intelligence, to remain undeveloped, we fail in our duty as protectors, carers, educators, and parents.

Even if The Voices Foundation reaches its ambitious target of 10% of all primary schools in my generation, we leave five million children below the radar. There is no need for organisations or individuals to be territorial. In fact there will never be enough of us. So let's build and succeed.