Agenda item

Report by the Principal.

The Board received a Report of the Principal concerning recent activities and updates at the School.

Members began by congratulating the staff on achieving gold in the recent Teaching Excellent Framework (TEF3).

A Member asked whether the collaborative work with the London Borough of Islington, in the development of the Islington Music Education Hub could potentially dilute the School’s other London wide CYM collaboration. Officers reassured Members that the work in Islington would provide a useful testbed for future work in the rest of London. Officers would bring a report back to the Board outlining “what worked” and how this could be applied to the rest of London, either via a pan-London approach or borough-by-borough. This had potentially big implications for evaluating under 18s music education in London, which had hitherto, received virtually no rigorous scrutiny. This final point spoke to a wider malaise nationally about the state of music in primary education, the School was doing its bit to help tackle this trend and resources were being mobilised to continue these efforts. A Member encouraged his fellow Board Members to write to their MP stressing the vital role music education provided young pupils.

Discussion briefly turned to the Islington Music Leaders Conference in the autumn. A Member asked whether there were sufficient measures and a forum in place for young people to offer feedback, officers responded that this was of critical importance and a platform would in place during and after the conference.

A Member commended the School’s recent awards and the continued drive towards enhancing a diverse school community, she did raise two concerns; the danger of “hot housing” young pupils, and whether, building from the earlier discussion around the autumn conference, the School was doing all it could to ensure measures were in place for students to provide feedback to staff. Members were of the view that generally this was a problem that hadn’t quite been conquered; specifically, conflict remained between marks given and feedback provided.  

Finally, the Chairman noted the low attendances at recent School performances, and encouraged fellow Board Members (and colleagues more widely) to attend and support the students, the school has great potential to become a leading part of Culture Mile, but the students needed to be given a greater platform – getting the message out there to support them was incumbent on the Board.

RESOLVED – that the Board noted the Report