We're Here to Help

Get help putting Sing Up's aims into practice with Workforce Development.

Sing Up is all about making more excellent singing opportunities available to all children. We're all committed to bringing about a nationwide cultural shift so that singing becomes a normal, accessible medium for engaging children across the curriculum and beyond; with the enthusiasm and energy generated from within schools radiating outwards into the whole community.

The Sing Up Workforce Development programme is a key tool for making that happen. It's for current and aspiring singing and vocal leaders; open to anyone who wants to develop their singing and vocal leadership skills - including teachers, other school staff, parents, instrumental tutors, performers, community musicians. That means it's for you!

Workforce Development programme

The programme aims to:

• Affirm, value and improve the skills, knowledge and confidence of primary school teachers in leading high-quality singing and vocal work
• Encourage and enable children, parents, playground supervisors and other members of the wider school community to facilitate or lead structured and informal setting
• Increase the number of specialist vocal leaders and other singing leaders who can offer high-quality singing and vocal work in diverse styles and genres both in and out of school
• Actively encourage and develop cultural diversity in the vocal leadership workforce
• Improve the skills, knowledge and confidence of those who work with children being educated outside the mainstream school system - whether that be in Pupil Referral Units or specialist Choir Schools - in leading high-quality, diverse singing and vocal work.

We know that there are pockets of brilliance all over the country where teachers, musicians and other activists are already supporting and leading wonderful vocal and singing activities, so connecting people to share that great practice is at the core of the workforce development strand. Our network of Sing Up Area Leaders are travelling the country to find out what's going on in order to connect and make best use of all that primary schools, professional music organisations, music services, individual musicians and other professionals can offer. They are your first point of contact for making your school a Singing School, for finding out what kind of support, training and advice your school needs to develop as a Singing School and making sure you get what you need. If you haven't met your Area Leader yet, check out our Training Area to find out their contact details.

National network

The Sing Up Area Leaders, supported by the Workforce Development Strand managers, will be putting together the knowledge and information they're gathering from you into a national distributed network connecting existing local and regional structures - such as Primary Strategy Learning networks, MusicLeader, the KS2 Wider Opportunities CPD regional programme and so on - and also configuring new networks and linkages where needed, to make sure that the energy, expertise, knowledge and enthusiasm developing in this rich, extended workforce can be circulated through the whole country can be circulated through the whole country, enriching and adding value to all our endeavours.

Through that network we're developing and making available a range of CPD and training opportunities at local, regional and national levels. These will include: how-to-get started sessions for teachers who have not led any singing activities; more advanced sessions for teachers who would like to try their hand at some new repertoire and approaches; sessions for musicians who have not worked in schools before; artist-led sessions sharing repertoire and vocal styles from around the world; conductor training; working on song-making with children; singing for teachers; sessions on collaboration and how to get the best out of practical partnerships and more.

You'll be telling us what you need, and then we'll be putting together bespoke programmes targeted at specific localities and regions-delivered through the local and regional networks, school and community clusters and other relevant structures- as well as online learning materials and discussion communities.

Some of these have started already, others are coming on-stream starting in November. We'll also be developing inserts and contributions to existing training programmes such as PGCE, FE and HE music and education and youth work courses and so on. We'll be researching and developing accreditation for a range of vocal leaders, working with appropriate partners.

We're also working on a specific strand of activity for Young Leaders - the workforce of the future. If you've already got a Young Singing Leaders programme in your school or community, or you would like to establish one, talk to you Sing Up Area Leader, or contact us for more information. We look forward to working - and singing - with you very soon!

Words: Katherine Zeserson, Director of Learning and Participation, The Sage Gateshead