Exchanging Notes Research Report 2019
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Birmingham City University for Youth Music 1 Exchanging Notes Research Report 2019 Birmingham City University for Youth Music 2 Exchanging Notes Research Report 2019 Exchanging Notes: A four year longitudinal research study Dr Victoria Kinsella Professor Martin Fautley Dr Adam Whittaker Birmingham City University for Youth Music 3 Exchanging Notes Research Report 2019 CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES, MAPS AND FIGURES ............................................................................. 4 ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................. 5 FOREWORD FROM MATT GRIFFITHS, YOUTH MUSIC CEO ............................................ 6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................... 8 EXCHANGING NOTES MODEL OF PARTNERSHIP ......................................................... 13 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 14 KEY DATA .......................................................................................................................... 17 17 EVALUATION METHODOLOGY AND METHODS ............................................................. 18 CHAPTER 1: THE POLICY AND PRACTICE BACKDROP OF EXCHANGING NOTES ..... 22 CHAPTER 2: THE MUSIC EDUCATION CONTEXT ........................................................... 30 CHAPTER 3: PROJECT CASE STUDIES .......................................................................... 39 CHAPTER 4: PROGRAMME OUTCOMES ......................................................................... 47 4.1 QUALITY AND STANDARDS OF MUSIC DELIVERY.................................................. 47 4.2 TO WHAT EXTENT HAVE PRACTICES BECOME EMBEDDED IN THE MUSIC ORGANISATION, THE SCHOOL AND BEYOND THE PROJECT? .................................... 65 4.3 THE IMPACT OF EXCHANGING NOTES ON EDUCATIONAL AND BROADER DEVELOPMENTAL OUTCOMES FOR YOUNG MUSICIANS ............................................ 77 4.4 THE YOUTH MUSIC QUALITY FRAMEWORK........................................................... 114 4.5 IMPACT OF THE ACTION RESEARCH PROCESS .................................................. 132 CHAPTER 5: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC EDUCATION? 135 RECOMMENDATIONS ..................................................................................................... 139 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................. 146 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 147 Birmingham City University for Youth Music 4 Exchanging Notes Research Report 2019 LIST OF TABLES, MAPS AND FIGURES Table 1: The Youth Music Quality Framework .................................................................................... 119 Figure 1 - Comparisons of music leader and music teacher perception scores for educational engagement .......................................................................................................................................... 83 Figure 2 - Average perception survey scores from the young musicians ............................................. 84 Figure 3 - Comparison of Autumn 2014 and Summer 2018 attendance data ...................................... 86 Figure 4 - YMEN attendance data and national comparisons. ............................................................. 87 Figure 5 - Longitudinal changes in median average attendance - Autumn 2014 to Summer 2018. .... 87 Figure 6 - Combined literacy and numeracy attainment outcomes at the beginning and end. ............ 90 Figure 7 - Attainment journey across Exchanging Notes – English. ..................................................... 91 Figure 8 - Attainment journey across Exchanging Notes - Maths. ....................................................... 91 Figure 9 - Comparisons of music leader and music teacher perception scores for social outcomes... 94 Figure 10 - Comparisons of young musicians’ perception scores for social outcomes at the start and end data collection points...................................................................................................................... 95 Figure 11 - Word cloud of young musicians’ perception survey comments. ...................................... 108 Figure 12 - Observation indicator scale used by research team ........................................................ 120 Figure 13 - Mean average observation indicators across Exchanging Notes .................................... 121 Figure 14 - Mean average observation indicators across Exchanging Notes, with maximum and minimum mean values ........................................................................................................................ 122 Figure 15 – Mean average of young-musician centred aspects of the quality framework. ................ 124 Figure 16 – Mean average for indicators of session content aspects of YMQF ................................. 126 Figure 17 – Mean average for indicators of environment aspects of quality framework. ................... 128 Figure 18 – Mean average for indicators of music leader practice aspects of quality framework ...... 130 Birmingham City University for Youth Music 5 Exchanging Notes Research Report 2019 ABBREVIATIONS AR: Action Research BERA: British Education Research Association DCMS: Department for Culture Media and Sport DfE: Department for Education EBacc: English Baccalaureate GCSE: General Certificate of Education KS3: Key Stage Three KS4: Key Stage Four MATs: Multi Academy Trust MLD: Multiple Learning Difficulty NAME: National Association for Music Educators NPME: National Plan for Music Education PMLD: Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty SEND: Special Educational Needs and Disability SLT: Senior Leadership Team WCET: Whole Class Ensemble Teaching YMQF: Youth Music Quality Framework YMEN: Youth Music Exchanging Notes Birmingham City University for Youth Music 6 Exchanging Notes Research Report 2019 FOREWORD FROM MATT GRIFFITHS, YOUTH MUSIC CEO Exchanging Notes was always about testing a hypothesis. Throughout Youth Music’s 20 years of operation we’ve seen how the music-making projects we fund – which mostly take place outside of the school environment – engage young people through creative projects which are centred around their existing passion for music and their individual needs. These projects lead to a wide range of positive personal and social outcomes for young musicians, alongside transferable skills. It seems like stating the obvious to say that young people love music. It’s such an integral part of growing up. For our Sound of the Next Generation research, published earlier this year, we found that nearly all of the young people surveyed had listened to music in the past week and two-thirds had engaged in some form of music-making activity. School is the one place where everyone should be able to access music, but this widespread access is constricting as school music departments disappear by the day. Where they still exist, they are often isolated or under-resourced. The government is currently developing a model music curriculum that promises a ‘sequenced and structured template curriculum’ (DfE, 2019). But there’s little point in having a model curriculum if there are no teachers around to teach it! Young people on our projects often contrast their Youth Music experience to the music they do in school. Primarily because in school they are given less autonomy over their own learning, and the curriculum doesn’t deliver the type of music they want to make. It’s disconnected from their musical lives. Exchanging Notes was our attempt to address this: bringing community music organisations together with school music departments, so that each could learn from the other. We wanted to know what wider benefits would occur if young people – particularly those most at risk of exclusion or low attainment – had access to sustained and engaging music in school. It was never designed as an out-and-out intervention study, but we did aim to track a core group of learners across the lifetime of the project. Projects worked to support educational and wider developmental outcomes for young people, alongside their creative, expressive and musical abilities. Use of Youth Music’s quality framework was very important to ensure that the learning was centred on the young musicians’ needs, and promoted personal and social outcomes as well as musical ones. Through the research we learned that young musicians developed new patterns of social interaction through establishing trusting relationships with other young people and adults. This social development acted as a springboard for a range of other learning outcomes and instilled in young people a greater sense of resilience to navigate life’s challenges. At the end of the programme they had clear ambitions for the future, with music usually playing a central role. Both the young musicians and the staff teams developed different identities, and re-authored new versions of themselves. Several school staff members in Exchanging Notes talked about the preoccupation in schools with attainment and targets. This meant that they felt less able to prioritise a participatory and creative music curriculum that centred around individual need. In the research it was essential that we looked beyond the standard