Bridget Whyte delivers Westminster Forum keynote speech

Music Mark CEO Bridget Whyte

This morning, 10th November 2021, CEO of Music Mark Bridget Whyte gave her keynote speech at the Westminster Education Forum, dedicated to exploring the next steps for music education in England and implementing the new curriculum.

Opening the online conference, Bridget discussed the immediate priorities for Music Education and the National Plan for music education in England. Having informally consulted her peers about their views on the topic using social media, it comes with little surprise that the top three areas identified as priorities were funding, workforce, and accessibility. On talking about funding, Bridget highlighted ongoing calls for realistic long-term funding which Music Mark have been advocating to government about alongside the ISM.

You can read Bridget’s full speech from the forum here.

The forum also includes for discussion the wider impact of the ongoing pandemic and the sector’s recovery from it.  The other keynote speaker was Mark Phillips, Ofsted’s National Lead for Music, on the topic of improving standards in music. Music Mark has heard from Mark twice this year already, delivering thought-provoking presentations to the membership on the Education Inspection Framework and Deep Dives into Music.

Members of Music Mark can revisit Mark’s excellent webinar presentation from January 2021 here, ‘Why just ‘doing’ music isn’t enough’.