Bridget’s Blog: Supporting Music Education in Scotland

I have always been proud of my Scottish connections (being married to a Scot) and throughout my career have been keen to listen, learn and celebrate the work of its music educators alongside those across the rest of the UK. Music education wherever it happens is likely to involve instruments, the voice and/or creating, listening and discussing music, but it’s interesting that every visit I make – to visit family or for work – reminds me of the differences between the two nations’ political, funding, educational and cultural systems and that these differences have differing effects on the musical learning offer in each nation.

Of course, the key difference is the curriculum in Scotland – the Curriculum for Excellence. This curriculum doesn’t appear to downgrade the expressive arts subjects and whilst English and Maths remain the most popular subjects of study across all qualification levels, it is interesting to note that in 2022 music was the 8^th most popular subject to study as an Advanced Higher. This popularity may be partly linked to the fact that pupils studying music for a qualification have historically been entitled to free instrumental/vocal tuition. However, another key difference more recently is that in 2022 the Scottish Government extended this commitment – with associated funding – to enable all children in state education to have an entitlement to free lessons.

As the UK Association for Music Education, Music Mark has three words to describe its work: Supporting and Connecting, as well as Influencing. In February I did quite a bit of travelling around the UK, including two separate trips to Scotland for a conference and a few days of meetings, to support and connect.

The funding settlement for music education in Scotland may appear more generous and the connection of Instrumental Teaching Services into the school system stronger, but the challenges widely discussed in England, Wales and indeed in Northern Ireland remain; funding, teacher recruitment, reaching young people in rural areas, local authority cuts, and more. For this reason, Music Mark values its role as an associate partner of HITS – Heads of Instrumental Teaching Scotland. Their annual conference, which took place in early February this year, is always useful in helping me to connect with the network of heads of service across the country. I am also proud to be on the Music Education Partnership Group Board and was glad to share knowledge and experiences from across the UK and provide advice learnt as the CEO of a membership association at the last meeting.

Whilst Music Mark is here to support and connect with everyone working in music education, with much of our offer being freely available to anyone, we are particularly keen to support our members. Visiting our members is often helpful to ensure that we’re supporting them as effectively as possible, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to visit Aberdeen City Instrumental Music Service in mid-February. I was able to hear about the specific challenges the team are facing and make suggestions about training and resources we have to support everyone within the service. It was encouraging to hear from a few of the teaching staff that they were already using our resources or signed up for training. Our conversation however also identified further support we can provide to the staff within the service and some useful connections they can make with other Member Music Services to help find or share solutions.

The HITS conference reminded everyone attending that we need to individually and collectively champion the power of music, however, we also need to celebrate and broaden the music education network. At Music Mark this is at the heart of what we do, working hard to help support and connect everyone to help us all feel part of the UK Music Education community.