At Awards for Young Musicians (AYM) we support talented young people from low-income families, helping them to overcome financial and social barriers they face to progression. We know that due to family circumstances, culture or background, some children don’t show obvious potential due to lack of prior musical experience and opportunity.
To help redress this inequity, we’ve been developing our Identifying Musical Talent and Potential programme (ITP) for over 10 years in partnership with Lead Facilitator Hugh Nankivell. It’s closely aligned to the National Plan for Music Education’s vision to enable “all children and young people to learn to sing, play an instrument and create music together, and have the opportunity to progress their musical interests and talents, including professionally,” and through an inclusive classroom approach and our 8 Facets of Musical Potential framework, the ITP programme gives teachers and music educators a different lens through which to spot the potential which might otherwise go unnoticed.
ITP training was relaunched in 2022 and offered free via Music Hubs with support from Arts Council England’s Hub Investment Fund. Since then, sessions have been delivered across England – online or in-person – as part of Hub INSET days, at conferences or as twilight training sessions. They’ve been attended by peripatetic teachers, whole-class teachers, ensemble leaders, primary class teachers and secondary music specialists, music students and trainee music leaders.
Now funded as part of AYM’s Arts Council NPO funding, we’ve recently trained our 1000th teacher in this new phase and in 2024 we’re looking forward to working with an even greater number of teachers and music leaders working with young people across England. This training is relevant to educators in all settings – schools, MATs, Music Hubs and other organisations working with young people and training music leaders and teachers.
To find out more about AYM’s Identifying Musical Talent and Potential programme, or to book your free session, please visit the ITP Page.
If you’re a peripatetic teacher or wishing to attend as an individual, you can as part of our free online session on April 25. Spaces are limited so save the date and book your spot now to avoid disappointment. https://forms.office.com/e/Ms8qtPRSJq/
We’re also seeking a Programme Producer to help us reach even more teachers and music leaders in 2024. If you’re passionate about making music education fairer.
“The training session was one of the best sessions I have experienced in a long time. I can really see the benefits for classroom teachers who are both specialist and non-specialists as well as the music hub workforce.” Mark Steele, Music Lead for Coventry Music Hub
“As a more experienced teacher it was a really helpful session – one of the best I’ve been to!” Secondary Head of Music, Birmingham
“Watching the films reminded me to build more child-led play into my sessions so that I have time to observe students making music and identify potential or missed opportunities.” Instrumental music teacher
