New approach to music education informed by experience of people with learning difficulties
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Merton primary schools are using a framework first used in special educational needs settings as they try to prove the link between music education and wider academic progress.
Using exceptionality to inform our understanding of typical learners is a strong new approach to music education, a Professor has said.
Adam Ockelford, Professor of Music at the University of Roehampton, has spent the last 25 years developing a framework for assessing musical engagement by children with special educational needs and learning difficulties.
Through his teaching and research, Professor Ockelford found that everyone, including people with the most profound disabilities, follows the same path when learning music.
Now, the framework he designed is underpinning the delivery of classroom music lessons in mainstream schools across the London Borough of Merton.
It’s the first time the framework will be used to measure progress made by children in classroom music lessons.
The charity providing the lessons says it’s using Professor Ockelford’s research because it’s accessible to all children.
What is Professor Ockelford’s framework?
The Sounds of Intent framework was created by Professor Ockelford and his colleagues. It splits musical engagement into three sections: proactive, reactive and interactive. It also shows the path of musical development – from when hearing starts right up to advanced musicianship.
The Sounds of Intent framework has been used in special educational needs settings over the last 25 years.
The centre of the circle indicates the most basic levels of each form of engagement, and the outermost circles show high levels of engagement.
Monitoring how children proactively make music, react to music, and interact with others during musical experiences, therapists and teachers can work out where children are on the chart.
This means over time, progress can be tracked.
Why is this being used by primary schools in Merton?
Merton Music Foundation has been given £250,000 by the council to provide a music scheme for year one children at 10 schools over two years.
The children are learning music in classroom sessions with specialist teachers following the same scheme of work. It’s called Mini Musicians.
Sally Hickson, one of the teachers delivering the programme, told City News it’s important specialists teach music to children: “I think it’s a really, really tough thing to ask non-music specialists to teach music. And in some ways, I think it’s a bit of a disservice to children”.
Sally told City News that when music’s delivered properly, she believes it enables children to get the “joy” out of it, and it can offer a space for children with less academic success to achieve.
David Rees, Merton Music Foundation’s operations manager, told City News that since the Covid-19 pandemic, children have been arriving at school with lower levels of “readiness”.
He says music lessons could help to address that: “With high level of confidence we know how a child’s brain develops in terms of its understanding and recognition of music. So that bedrock of rhythm and pitch and melodic shape is what informs a child’s ability to then pick up speech and language, and understand complicated instructions.”
The staff have chosen to use the Sounds of Intent framework because it can be applied to all children, including those with special educational needs.
By using the framework to track children’s musical progress, staff at Merton Music Foundation are hoping to use this project to prove that teaching music to children helps their wider development.
Asked how he felt about his framework now being used to measure success made in classroom music lessons, Professor Ockelford said: “I’m quite proud of the model that we’ve adopted, which is to start with the exceptional, figure out how they do it, and then move from there to what you might call the neurotypical.
He continued: “It’s the opposite approach to traditional cognitive psychology which is all very norm-based, so it says ‘what would a typical person be able to do’…and of course there aren’t typical people.
“I think it’s a really strong new model in educational psychology that we use exceptionality as the research engine for the so-called typical.”
Why is the Council in Merton spending money on this?
Merton Borough Council’s leader Ross Garrod learned the clarinet when he was growing up.
He told City News he wanted to provide a music education activity which would benefit both young people and the community: “Not only will Mini Musicians directly boost teaching hours of music in Merton, but the specialist classes will also build diverse skills for all pupils in the cohort.”
He continued: “One of the key strategic priorities [of the London Borough of Merton] is to nurture civic pride, and projects like Mini Musicians are part of this.”
The leader told City News the council could afford to invest in the scheme thanks to “careful management of Council finances”.
Asked about whether the Mini Musicians project will continue after the current cycle ends in 2025, David Rees said: “Funding will be a key consideration going forward. And this is why we’ve put so much time and resource into the evaluation. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to demonstrate that this was a really good use of money: that the impact on the children was significant.”
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StandfirstMerton primary schools are using a framework first used in special educational needs settings as they try to prove the link between music education and wider academic progress.
Using exceptionality to inform our understanding of typical learners is a strong new approach to music education, a Professor has said.
Adam Ockelford, Professor of Music at the University of Roehampton, has spent the last 25 years developing a framework for assessing musical engagement by children with special educational needs and learning difficulties.
Through his teaching and research, Professor Ockelford found that everyone, including people with the most profound disabilities, follows the same path when learning music.
Now, the framework he designed is underpinning the delivery of classroom music lessons in mainstream schools across the London Borough of Merton.
It’s the first time the framework will be used to measure progress made by children in classroom music lessons.
The charity providing the lessons says it’s using Professor Ockelford’s research because it’s accessible to all children.
What is Professor Ockelford’s framework?
The Sounds of Intent framework was created by Professor Ockelford and his colleagues. It splits musical engagement into three sections: proactive, reactive and interactive. It also shows the path of musical development – from when hearing starts right up to advanced musicianship.
The Sounds of Intent framework has been used in special educational needs settings over the last 25 years.
The centre of the circle indicates the most basic levels of each form of engagement, and the outermost circles show high levels of engagement.
Monitoring how children proactively make music, react to music, and interact with others during musical experiences, therapists and teachers can work out where children are on the chart.
This means over time, progress can be tracked.
Why is this being used by primary schools in Merton?
Merton Music Foundation has been given £250,000 by the council to provide a music scheme for year one children at 10 schools over two years.
The children are learning music in classroom sessions with specialist teachers following the same scheme of work. It’s called Mini Musicians.
Sally Hickson, one of the teachers delivering the programme, told City News it’s important specialists teach music to children: “I think it’s a really, really tough thing to ask non-music specialists to teach music. And in some ways, I think it’s a bit of a disservice to children”.
Sally told City News that when music’s delivered properly, she believes it enables children to get the “joy” out of it, and it can offer a space for children with less academic success to achieve.
David Rees, Merton Music Foundation’s operations manager, told City News that since the Covid-19 pandemic, children have been arriving at school with lower levels of “readiness”.
He says music lessons could help to address that: “With high level of confidence we know how a child’s brain develops in terms of its understanding and recognition of music. So that bedrock of rhythm and pitch and melodic shape is what informs a child’s ability to then pick up speech and language, and understand complicated instructions.”
The staff have chosen to use the Sounds of Intent framework because it can be applied to all children, including those with special educational needs.
By using the framework to track children’s musical progress, staff at Merton Music Foundation are hoping to use this project to prove that teaching music to children helps their wider development.
Asked how he felt about his framework now being used to measure success made in classroom music lessons, Professor Ockelford said: “I’m quite proud of the model that we’ve adopted, which is to start with the exceptional, figure out how they do it, and then move from there to what you might call the neurotypical.
He continued: “It’s the opposite approach to traditional cognitive psychology which is all very norm-based, so it says ‘what would a typical person be able to do’…and of course there aren’t typical people.
“I think it’s a really strong new model in educational psychology that we use exceptionality as the research engine for the so-called typical.”
Why is the Council in Merton spending money on this?
Merton Borough Council’s leader Ross Garrod learned the clarinet when he was growing up.
He told City News he wanted to provide a music education activity which would benefit both young people and the community: “Not only will Mini Musicians directly boost teaching hours of music in Merton, but the specialist classes will also build diverse skills for all pupils in the cohort.”
He continued: “One of the key strategic priorities [of the London Borough of Merton] is to nurture civic pride, and projects like Mini Musicians are part of this.”
The leader told City News the council could afford to invest in the scheme thanks to “careful management of Council finances”.
Asked about whether the Mini Musicians project will continue after the current cycle ends in 2025, David Rees said: “Funding will be a key consideration going forward. And this is why we’ve put so much time and resource into the evaluation. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to demonstrate that this was a really good use of money: that the impact on the children was significant.”
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