The transition from primary school to secondary school is a big deal for everyone involved. Parents worry about their children getting lost and children fear the repercussions of going from being the oldest and biggest to the youngest and smallest at ‘big school’.
In all of this drama, subjects such as music often fall by the wayside as students and parents get their head around a new way of life. Compounding this are the many invisible barriers that exist when moving from primary to secondary school, especially for those with less support at home.
From a musical perspective, one of the biggest changes is the move from free, compulsory, ensemble-based music tuition at primary school (often with access to a free instrument that they can take home and practice), to a drastically different world at secondary school. Beyond classroom music, the study and/or enjoyment of music is optional, prohibitively expensive, and on a timetabled carousel, which occasionally takes them out of maths lessons. When you put it like that, is it any wonder that on average, participation declines when students start secondary school?
There are of course many schools across the country with effective systems and communication channels in place, and many music hubs willing to provide support and assistance when called upon. While it's not a bible, my experience as a head of music at William Ellis School, working closely with Camden Music, has taught me that using the following steps really does work:
Step 1: Connecting with your feeder primaries
While this is potentially one of the most obvious places to start, it's definitely not the easiest. How do you coordinate information across a potential pool of 60 feeder primaries? Firstly, it's likely that only two or three primary schools make up a big chunk of your newest Year 7 intake, so start there. In order to make your ‘first contact’ most effective, get in touch with your transition lead or the local music hub so you can work together. The following has also worked really well for us:
- Peer observation between you and your primary counterpart. Be brave. Get them to come and see you teach.
- Invite primary teachers and headteachers to your concerts or take an open rehearsal at the local primary.
- Organise joint concerts with the local primary and develop a combined repertoire.
- When hiring peris, first look for those that teach in your feeder primaries so you have a permanent connection.
- Remember, nothing beats face to face, so try and get down to your local feeders, when possible.
Step 2: Nailing the open evening
It's no secret that parents of musical students will often seek out secondaries in the local area that promise to continue providing a rich musical curriculum for their children. In this very positive scenario, it's therefore your job to ensure that these parents and children choose to come to you.
To get music noticed in the flurry of open events, consider the following:
- Get a high-quality ensemble to perform in the hall before, after or during the parents’ talk. Remember that rehearsals will need to start at the beginning of September, as this evening always comes around faster than you expect!
- Arrange ‘wandering musicians’ – student soloists strategically placed in otherwise ‘wasted’ corridors performing mini-solos.
- Have a practical musical activity in the department (ideally led by students), which reflects the musical culture of the school. Our activities tend to be singing and drumming.
- Use students to answer as many questions as possible by providing them with some FAQs to answer – if you have music captains or scholars, this is the perfect time to call upon them!
- If you have any music ICT facilities, create a short, narrated video that can be loaded onto several computers.
Use your network: reach out and connect with your feeder primaries and your hub, and put music at the centre of any planned transition days
Step 3: Getting help from your music hub
Once you know how many students are coming from each primary school, tell your music hub. Music hubs can then tell you what music provision they have had. For example, last year 39 of the 126 new students at my school had experience of playing in a brass ensemble. As a result, we got a brass ensemble going and started with the repertoire that they had played in Year 5 or 6.
Step 4: Getting music on the transition agenda
Schools are always required to gather a range of student data as part of school enrolment. Speak to the head of transition and ensure that there is an opportunity to ask about music at primary school, including what students enjoyed and if they want to carry on with lessons. This data combined with information from the music hub should then be passed to you and used to create a ‘hit list’ of students to target for sign up.
Step 5: Setting up summer term transition ensembles
Transition ensembles can provide the much-needed hand holding required for students who wouldn't otherwise continue music at secondary school. This is because students will know what the music teachers look like, where the music department is and where instruments are stored – all things that are a barrier to progression on the first day of school.
To make sure our primary musicians became secondary musicians, we do the following:
- Musicians love to know that their legacies will continue, so contact the primary schools with brass players and ask the teachers if they would like these players to attend a ‘taster session’ at their new school.
- Choose the repertoire carefully and in collaboration with the local primary teachers, who will no doubt introduce your material to their students prior to the session, and they might even be kind enough to take them to your school for the event.
- Get your own students to attend the session, which could be led by your instrumental tutor.
- Invite parents to the last 20 minutes of the rehearsal so that they can see their children in action.
- Students may be able to use the instruments that have been loaned to them by their school. In the event that some require instruments, be sure to check and ask the local music hub to loan you a few for the session.
- Finally, follow up by getting students signed up for a primary-style ensemble in September. Provide instruments, if possible, and think carefully about when they occur in the day. During form time once or twice a week is a great slot if you can get it past the SLT, as students are in school but not in curriculum lessons.
Step 6: Putting music at the heart of your transition events
All schools have transition days, where students try out lessons in different subjects and meet their form tutor. Ensure that music is in there, either with whole-class singing or a taster of whatever you would normally do in Year 7 music.
Ideally, you want to finish off the day with a combined performance from the primary students who took part in your transition ensembles with students from your school. This should be in front of the rest of the year group and their parents to get them used to performing at ‘big school’ before they've even started.
Step 7: Plan ahead in the summer term
Come September, there will be so many competing priorities, from whole school initiatives to Key Stage 4 exam analysis. Ensure you find at least some time to plan for September at the end of the summer, bearing the following points in mind:
- One clear action point would be to get instruments for the Year 6 students you hope will continue to play at your school, and communicate with new parents the times of the week that relevant ensembles will occur come September.
- Arrange and source repertoire for choir, administer any instrument lesson sign-ups and ensure the concert series is planned as far ahead as possible, including music for whole school events such as sports day. This way you will have the head space to start making music from the beginning of term.
