The 2022-23 academic year was AYM’s first full year of delivering this new phase of our acclaimed Identifying Musical Talent and Potential (ITP) training to music leaders across England, and we’re celebrating some exciting programme developments.
ITP training exists to make music education fairer. It tackles one of the biggest obstacles to young people’s musical progress – identifying those with talent and potential, especially in whole class or larger group settings. ITP helps music leaders foster the right environment to spot children who might otherwise be missed and gives them the tools to do this, including our 8 Facets of Musical Potential.
As part of this latest phase we’ve recruited and trained 10 new Facilitators to build capacity and allow us to reach more music leaders – they’ve brought so much to our programme and you can meet them here.
In the academic year 2022-23 we’ve trained 640 music leaders via 24 Hubs in 31 training sessions. We know ITP is changing the way teachers think – 67% of music leaders will change their teaching practice in response to the training, over 80% will introduce more creativity and exploration into their practice and 38% will spend more time observing their students to spot what they might otherwise have missed.
“Although I’ve been teaching for 25 years, having this training really flipped my thinking about how I deliver music and how I respond to the children in the room.”
Primary music specialist
“Teachers will be more aware of more subtle factors that show a child’s musical enjoyment, engagement and potential.”
Hub Lead
“As a more experienced teacher it was a really helpful session – one of the best I’ve been to!”
Secondary music teacher
“This training has given me the opportunity to think in more depth about something I often just do subconsciously.”
Peripatetic music teacher
As well as our film resources used in our training, we’ve made two further films this year. The first was a case study featuring one of our facilitators, Helen Mead, who reflected on her experience and how she always questions “Am I doing the best for the children I’m teaching?” You can watch the full case study here.
The second film features our work in partnership with Music Masters and documents how they’ve established our ITP training and approach to learning into their PGCEi. You can find out more about this partnership here and watch the film below.
The identification of individual talent, and the building and sustaining of equitable talent pipelines are key.
The Power of Music to Change Lives, A National Plan for Music Education, June 2022
The need for teachers to be able to spot talent and potential in the children they work with is cited in the latest National Plan for Music Education published last year. In order to widen the reach of our ITP training, we’re making this free offer available not only to Music Hubs and their staff, but to Multi Academy Trusts, individual schools and any other organisations working with young people or training music leaders.
