Music Mark partners with Arts Council England to support the future of Music Education Hubs

Music Mark has been working in partnership with Arts Council England (ACE) for a number of years to provide training and resources as part of the Hub Support Programme and in 2019/20 carried out an evaluation of the programme to date.

We are therefore delighted to be continuing our partnership as part of an enhanced programme of activity in 2021/22 which is being supported by additional funding from the Department for Education.  We are developing our activities in consultation with our Membership as well as ACE and our other partner this year, Sound Connections.  Our work will be divided into two main areas of activity, workforce development and organisational sustainability.

We are aiming to launch the first phase of our 2020/21 Workforce Development Programme in April which will support the individuals who work across the Music Education Hub network through training, peer-to-peer support and resources.  This will include, for the first time this year, ensuring we are supporting the full team who work to deliver the quality music education offer in England through the hub network including the administrative staff.

In addition, building on some work we have been doing over the past few months with Samantha Spence, we will be creating guidance, resources and delivering training around racial diversity and expanding that work to consider the many facets of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion work music hub organisations are doing and could develop in the future.

As well as our Workforce Development Programme, we will be working closely with ACE and Sound Connections in ‘Underpinning Hubs for the Future’.  Through increased capacity and involving additional partners where appropriate, Music Mark will provide local, regional, and national support where it is needed for the organisations that make up the 120 Hub partnerships to become more sustainable and innovate for the future.  Again, we will be sharing more information about our work in due course – developing the offer based on identified need – but can confirm that as part of this work we have been asked by ACE to manage an ‘Innovation Pot’ – a dedicated pot of funding which will be made available to small groups of hubs who wish to work together to find a solution to a common need.  A further announcement will be made in late April on how hubs can access the funding together with additional information about our wider programme of organisational support.

Music Mark’s CEO, Bridget Whyte, stated: “Music Mark welcomes this additional funding from the Department for Education to support Music Education Hubs at this difficult time.  We are proud to continue our work with Arts Council England and work more closely with Sound Connections to ensure that music education retains its place in the curriculum and in the life of every child in England.”