With an incoming government that is yet to announce how it will address and dramatically improve the current funding landscape for the arts in the UK, as Co-founder and CEO of Restore the Music, I offer up a blueprint for a successful funding model for music education in state schools with underprivileged communities.
I co-founded Restore The Music to address the startling inequity in music provision in schools in impoverished and underserved areas, where children from marginalised communities have inadequate access or support in learning a musical instrument and engaging with music. This is especially relevant in current times following the significant cuts to music education and the arts.
Restore The Music exists to bridge the widening chasm in the funding of music education, pinpointing the areas of need throughout London and key cities in the north. These are areas of high socio-economic deprivation, in which we target schools with an average of 50- 60% of schoolchildren on free school meals. Restore the Music raises private sector funding for the RTM School Grant Programme, focussing on long term results, impact and vision, to deliver real change.
It does this not by dismantling the existing framework of the current education system but by building on it. In delivering much needed financial liquidity, schools are freed up to purchase a wide range of musical instruments and equipment, creating well-stocked music departments that reflect the range of interests, cultures and languages within their student demographic.
By having a laser sharp focus on the areas of need across the country and a joined up, collaborative and co-design approach, across 11 years since inception RTM has been able to deliver £2.6million to the music departments of nearly 150 primary and secondary schools, providing over 30,000 musical instruments to 110,000 children aged 4-18.
There is a persistent problem - the years of austerity have resulted in schools continuously struggling with under-resourcing. The most impoverished and underserved areas of the UK will usually have the hardest hit school music departments. The Child Poverty Action Group has found that poverty harms a child’s health, social and emotional wellbeing and education.
This is demonstrated in the schools we work with, who have pupils presenting a high number of challenging personal circumstances, be it health, social, mental or emotional, which in turn adversely affects attendance, engagement and attainment. We are seeing overwhelming numbers of schools with their roll call requiring extra support both in and outside the classroom. Yet it is increasingly recognised that a music department can be the ‘rehabilitation unit’ for many kids with a wide range of issues that other departments simply fail to engage with. This could be a child who is non-verbal, has AHDH, autism, or emotional, mental health needs, or displays repeated violent behaviour, or is experiencing safeguarding issues and more.
So, it’s important that a music department contains a wide range of resources, both in the classroom and extra-curricular, that a child facing all manner of personal difficulties can walk into and find that one instrument that will unlock potential and transform their lives. It could be a drumkit for the child experiencing bullying and abuse, the music tech tools for a non-verbal autistic child, the piano for a child refugee who speaks no English, or steel pans for a child groomed across ‘county lines’ .
Today, we share the news of Restore The Music’s latest funding round, with £240k awarded in grants to 14 schools in London and three key cities in the North; Birmingham, Newcastle and Manchester, reaching 11,000 pupils and enabling vital access to nearly 1,500 instruments and resources in some of the most deprived areas of the UK. In particular, eight London schools were identified as among some of the most deprived in the capital and awarded grants totalling £150k.
Among the London schools is Harris Invictus Academy Croydon, whose principal Lisa Kattenhorn said “We know the Arts are being squeezed and budgets are tight, and our children in Croydon do not get access to the same facilities as others, but RTM’s funding will be crucial to making better music provision a reality for our children. Stormzy, who was himself once a Harris pupil, expressed it perfectly ‘Your circumstances don't determine your potential.’”
Supporting music education in turn supports the talent pipeline into the music industry at the very grassroots entry level, and we are learning of the struggles of musicians at the start of their journeys in the North from our friends at Youth Music via its Sound of the Next Generation report. That is why supporting the North and growing our reach there is a key outcome for RTM, being more than a London-centric charity, one that is taking philanthropic investment in music up to the North of England.
Our vision is long-term and necessarily so. Delivering transformational change through music education is our 5 year plan from day 1 of an RTM grant, charting the knock on effect starting at Year 7 all the way to Year 11 and the end of GCSEs. Across the 11 years since RTM was founded, we are now seeing positive impact on wider attainment and attendance, particularly amongst those with higher behaviour points or lower academic outcomes than average. A well-resourced secondary school music department welcoming Year 7 pupils will see a significant uptick in GCSE numbers in Year 10 and a wider impact on general attainment and attendance markers. We look forward to sharing the evidence of the impact of RTM funding, via a new 5 year Case Study Spotlight launching at Haggerston School in Hackney this September.
Even one of the main proponents of music education, that advocates for investing in and championing the arts, Harris Federation, would have struggled to have achieve the same level of Music uptake and development without significant RTM funding. As Diane Stirling, Senior Music Consultant, Harris Federation says:
“Nationally there has been a decline of 12% of entries at GCSE/BTEC Music. At Harris we have seen a rise of just over 32% in numbers of entries’ which is drastically bucking the trend. I can say with absolute confidence a huge part of this has been RTM funding support. “
