Last week's Sing Up Gathering in Birmingham brought together Area Leaders from around the country to share their skills and experiences. There were plenty of good news stories emerging about the positive progress of the campaign and the positive effects of singing, from the music service that calls Sing Up its 'golden thread' to the mute pupil who started to speak after taking up singing.
Here are just a few of the ways in which Sing Up is changing the musical landscape.
Changing teachers
Shelly Ambury, Area Leader for the North East of England:
"The joy for me has been working with teachers. Say you've done three twilight training sessions, the first is often lots of folded arms and 'I can't sing' and 'my voice is awful'. I use a lot of the games passed on by Sue Hollingworth [director of Scunthorpe Cooperative Junior Choir] and you find quite quickly that that barrier, that inhibition, the fear, goes. By the second session they're raring to go and they've been trying things out, they say 'my class loves doing this one', and by the third session it's 'we're really, really enjoying this'. That's been very successful and a real joy."
Changing students
Phillipa Toulson, Area Leader for Somerset:
"We've got a couple of young leaders that have been working with us on a Small Schools Choirs project. They are 17 and 18 and they're now setting up groups at their colleges because it has built up their confidence. One of them has set up a choir at his college and the other is working with his local primary school. They're taking up the baton and getting fired up and that helps to get other young people on board."
Shelly Ambury:
"I run a primary school choir and had one little girl who complained about everything and played the victim, but now she has really got into music she's always jolly, she wants to do solos, it has really developed her confidence."
Changing exclusion to inclusion
Phillipa Toulson:
"With our choirs project we spent a little while before Christmas working with a teaching assistant and a Down's syndrome boy she helps. He's now part of the choir and she's part of the choir with him, so they can use that as part of his method of learning throughout his school work. That was lovely to see."
Shelly Ambury:
"Somebody told me about a child who was a selective mute - she came to England, had no English and decided not to speak. But within three months of singing she started to use language."
Changing frameworks
James Dickinson, Head of Hertfordshire Music Service and Area Leader for Hertfordshire:
"Sing Up has transformed the way we plan provision. Sing Up isn't a project for us, it's more like a golden thread joining everything up. We now have a three-year vocal and instrumental strategy that we have put in place. Structurally, Sing Up has created a very positive impact on the way we work; really it was the catalyst for change."
This feature was originally published by Music Manifesto, the campaign to improve music education 2004 – 2010.
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