Research, Evidence & Impact
Transforming Music Education Through Research, Evidence & Impact
Voices Foundation works with our participants and partners to understand the effectiveness and impact of our work. We incorporate monitoring and evaluation into our programmes, reflect on our learning on an ongoing basis, and undertake specific deep-dive research projects to explore areas of interest further. We then share our findings with our participants, partners, and sector colleagues.
Voices Foundation Impact
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Each year 45,000+ children benefit from high-quality music learning
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Each year over 1,400 teachers and school staff participate in training and mentoring
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Each year 200 partner schools collaborate to improve children's access to high-quality music education
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100% of heads and teachers report increases in pupils' wellbeing, confidence, and self-esteem
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97% of heads and teachers report increases in pupils' social and communication skills
Why do we need music?
Music is central to the human experience and present in the everyday lives of people of all ages and cultures (Welch et al., 2020).
Engaging with music may enhance cognitive functions that are key to children's learning, such as planning, working memory, inhibition, and flexibility (Dumont et al., 2017).
Many of the brain functions used when taking part in music are also used by children to achieve key developmental milestones. Speech and music, for example, have several shared processing systems. Musical experiences can impact language perception, which affects learning to read (Hallam, 2010).
Studies have found that children who participate in music activities perform better in English, Maths, and Science, regardless of their socioeconomic background and previous academic record. In some cases, the difference between children who do and do not participate in music activity can equate to several months' academic progress (Guhn et al., 2020).
Children who participate in long-term musical programmes have shown higher empathy than similar children who do not (Rabinowitch et al. 2013).
Through music activity, children can share emotions and express themselves non-verbally. Participating in music activity creates opportunities for children to be heard and it may consequently improve children's self-esteem and confidence to express themselves in non-musical ways too (Mak & Fancourt, 2019).
Educators, parents, and guardians can quickly and powerfully communicate instructions or set a mood by giving a musical signal or playing a particular song. As a result, they can use music to help children regulate their behaviour, calm their emotions, or achieve a task more efficiently. This can result in a more productive use of school time, improved focus, and increased learning (Blasco-Magraner, 2021).
Our approach to Continuing Professional Development and Learning
We believe that all children should have access to high-quality music education that is interactive and engaging. To achieve long-lasting and sustainable change for children, we focus on creating partnerships with those who have the most influence over children's lives: senior school leaders, teachers, parents, and policymakers. Our programmes support non-specialists to develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to effectively teach and advocate for music. By training one primary school teacher to deliver high-quality music activities in their classroom could benefit up to 900 children throughout that teacher's career!
We believe our programmes have the most significant impact when we work collaboratively with our partners, establishing a clear, shared vision and working together with a sense of purpose towards the programme outcomes. Our approach stems from research undertaken by Cordingley et al. (2015) about what makes for effective professional development. Throughout our work, this means that:
Voices Foundation practitioners work collaboratively with participants as peers and co-learners.
We encourage participants who hold leadership roles to actively participate in training and create the conditions for learning to flourish in their workplaces.
The content of our programmes is relevant to participants and their day-to-day experiences and aspirations for pupils.
There are frequent opportunities for everyone to encounter, understand, reflect, and respond to new approaches to practice, successes, and challenges.
The greatest influence on the quality of children's learning experiences is the quality of teaching [and] the greatest influence on the quality of teaching is the quality of teacher learning experiences.
— Atwal 2019