WEMA has welcomed the publication of the Government’s new national strategy to support the music sector.
Turn It Up: Our Plan for Music is a £45m ten-part strategy setting out how music education, industry and enrichment can work together to make sure every child and young person has the chance to discover, create and progress in music.
The plan is very much in tune with the scope of work already being carried out by WEMA. Across our three strands – Music Hub, Cultural Hub and Creative Health – we've long believed that music should never be the preserve of the few, and it's genuinely encouraging to see that principle placed at the heart of national policy.
Music education, from first note to career pathway
As the Music Hub for North Somerset, South Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset, our music education services give children and young people a grounding in music from their earliest years, alongside the chance to keep playing, performing and progressing – including into further study and creative careers.
This clearly matches the ambition set out in the plan's education and skills chapter, from a reformed national curriculum to continued investment in Music Hubs and the instruments, tuition and ensemble opportunities we provide. We're pleased to see this recognised as a core part of music infrastructure, not an add-on.
An evidence base already in place
The plan also emphasises partnership as the way this ambition gets delivered in practice – connecting schools, creative practitioners, cultural organisations and communities.
This way of working again matches the model WEMA has tested and evidenced through our Cultural Education Hub. Our research – working with over 130 schools, 9,000 students and 27 freelance creative practitioners across the West of England – shows what it takes to build lasting, high-quality creative partnerships in schools: mentoring and professional development for practitioners, and longer-term residencies that build trust and embed creativity across the curriculum. Music is very much part of the same cultural education picture, and the same model of positive partnership with schools, teachers and music practitioners is what our Music Hub work has always drawn on too.
Wellbeing and inclusion at the centre
The plan's Every Child Can strand, which puts emphasis on widening access to music and creativity for disadvantaged and care-experienced young people, also mirrors our Creative Health work. Across Music Therapy, wellbeing and inclusion services, WEMA already support children and young people for whom music can be a lifeline, not just a lesson, and we welcome a national plan that recognises this as part of what music education should achieve.
Music for all – not just the traditional route
WEMA has always believed that music education means more than instrumental lessons and singing, important as those are. Music Production workshops, a DJing course (that proved so popular last year we're bringing it back), and our Rock and Pop Music Centre are all ways to give young people routes into music that reflect how they actually create and engage with it today. The plan's emphasis on broadening access and building pathways into the creative industries is a welcome validation of that approach.
Well placed for what comes next
Because access, inclusion and the belief that music is for everyone already sit at the centre of our mission – backed now by evidence from our own Cultural Education Hub research as well as our day-to-day Music Hub delivery – we feel well placed to help deliver the ambitions this plan sets out locally. We look forward to working with schools, partners, Arts Council England and government to help make sure every child in our area gets to experience the difference music can make – however they choose to make it.
Read the full findings from our Cultural Education Hub research here.
