Listen Imagine Compose Primary
Join Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Birmingham Music Education Research Group (B-MERG), Birmingham City University, to explore the Listen Imagine Compose Primary research findings and toolkit, consider the report’s implications, and collectively think of next steps to support composing in primary schools.
Despite composing being part of the national curriculum for music since 1989, the research tells us this is the area that teachers struggle with most. This was also highlighted in the recent Ofsted report Striking the Right Note:
‘In most [primary] schools, the weakest aspect of the curriculum was teaching pupils to become better at composition’ and ‘very few schools had considered the underpinning knowledge that pupils need to construct and deconstruct music’.
From September 2021 to July 2023, 10 professional composers worked in 8 schools in Birmingham and Bristol with 480 children (and their teachers), following them from Year 4 into Year 5 as part of the action research project Listen Imagine Compose Primary. This partnership project between Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Birmingham City University (Lead Researcher, Professor Martin Fautley) and Sound and Music, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, drew on 25 years of collective and individual experiences of supporting young people to compose in and outside of school. In addition to school workshops there were reflection seminars, a now published supporting toolkit and, of course, the research.
The LICP research report demonstrates that all children have the capacity to compose when given the opportunity and right support, positively enjoy expressing their ideas through sound, and that generalist classroom teachers can plan and teach effective composing lessons when give the appropriate professional development and support. In the words of one of the participating children: ‘Composing feels really amazing because it’s a bit like carving: you start off with nothing and then it comes to something and for that to come from you is an amazing feeling. It’s not just something you hear, it’s something within you.’
We want to see (and hear!) more composing in primary schools, taught by a skilled and confident workforce, with more resources to enable this to happen, and we think that Music Education Hubs and Music Services have a key role to play in this both through support for schools and by ensuring composing is part of WCET.
Please join us for this exciting day of presentations, panel talks, discussions and keynotes.
Nancy Evans (BCMG Director of Learning), Professor Emeritus Martin Fautley (Lead Researcher) & Dr Victoria Kinsella-Hadjinestoros (Birmingham City University)
Attend this event
The conference is free with lunch provided. We would appreciate if you could book by December 9th as we may open the day to a wider group of people in involved in Music Education if there are still places available.
About the Provider
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group is one of Europe’s leading new music ensembles. BCMG Learn & Take Part focuses on young people’s composing, supporting teachers, digital resources, commissioning music for youth/non-professional ensembles, concerts for schools and families.
