Inspiring Music has been nominated for a prestigious national award at a ceremony dubbed the Oscars of the arts education sector.
The music service’s partnership with Transformance Music has been selected as a finalist in the Outstanding SEND Resource category of the 2019 Music Teacher Awards for Excellence.
The project, funded through an Arts Council England grant, worked with Central Bedfordshire’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) schools to give pupils the opportunity to compose, improvise and perform music through the use of a variety of iPad apps.
It saw 130 sessions ran across four schools, with 167 pupils and 65 teachers and teaching assistants attending five sessions each, also providing staff with the ability to teach and support music lessons.
A series of videos and lesson plans are now available on the Inspiring Music website, freely accessible by all, to show teachers and teaching assistants how to use the different apps.
Inspiring Music will find out if they’ve won on 6 March in the Music Teacher Awards for Excellence ceremony at the Sheraton Grand London Park Lane Hotel.
“We believe the best way to learn is through creativity so we’re delighted with this award nomination, which recognises an innovative way of doing this.
Our special schools were an area we wanted to focus on because we want to make sure that, as a music service, we’re giving all children of Central Bedfordshire the same opportunities.
We also wanted to help teachers develop skills and confidence so it is a sustainable thing they can teach regularly and not just a one-off session, which we can support through further training and further experience that a similar.”