FREQUENLY ASKED QUESTIONS
& USEFUL LINKS
IS A "MUSIC HUB" WHAT WE USED TO CALL A MUSIC SERVICE?
There is a difference. Music hubs are groups of organisations working in partnership to oversee and deliver music education in their areas. A music service is an organisation which provides instrumental, vocal and curriculum teaching and ensemble provision. All hubs must have a lead organisation, and in many cases but not all, this lead organisation is a music service. It should be noted that some hubs have no music service partner at all.
DO MUSIC HUBS JUST PROVIDE MUSIC LESSONS?
To represent all music hubs as simply instrumental tuition providers is reductive. Some music hubs don’t do any direct teaching delivery. Music Hubs have a set of goals developed from the National Plan for Music Education. Instrumental tuition for young people can be achieved through a variety of different methods other than direct delivery: signposting to individual teachers and teaching providers; grants towards the cost; free or low cost instrument hire; training of in-school staff to deliver these programmes; provision of free or subsidised teaching resources; the list goes on. Aside from this role, music hubs are encouraged to promote access to ensembles, signposting to affordable progression routes, developing a singing strategy, offering CPD to school staff, providing an instrumental loan service, and providing access to large scale musical experiences.
HOW CAN CHILDREN BECOME MUSICIANS THROUGH WHOLE CLASS TUITION?
Whole class instrumental lessons are not about training up a new generation of instrumentalists, they are music lessons which use a particular instrument (or family of instruments) as the carrier for general musical learning. Whole Class Ensemble Teaching (WCET) has more in common with curriculum music than it does with small group and 1-2-1 instrumental teaching. Tips here!
ARE MUSIC HUBS RESPONSIBLE FOR MUSIC IN SCHOOLS?
Music hubs have no statutory responsibility for the quality of music in schools. Schools do. That said, music hubs generally actively want to support music in schools and make their best effort to improve the quality of music-making in their area. Ultimately though, the responsibility for the quality of their music provision lieswith each individual school. We have seen a massive upsurge in the last 5 years of schools wanting to develop their music now that Ofsted are interested in it again. More on this!
HAVE MUSIC HUBS CAUSED THE DECLINE IN INSTRUMENT TAKE-UP?
If there are fewer children learning to play instruments, the causes are likely to be the cost of living crisis making it unaffordable for families (though of course there may be many children learning instruments informally without ever having to pay a teacher), the pandemic causing some children to ‘miss their chance’ at starting an instrument at the right time (although perhaps balanced out by the numbers of adults taking up a musical instrument during lockdown?), academic pressures such as the EBacc making music a less desirable study option, and the sheer amount of alternative pursuits available to today’s young people. In the 80’s the alternatives were guides or scouts, football or ballet – even kids’ TV didn’t start until teatime! It would not be surprising (though difficult to prove) if more of my generation learnt an instrument than the current generation, but this is not the fault of music hubs.
WHY DOESN'T MY HUB PROVIDE CPD, HIRES, EVENTS ETC. LIKE OTHERS?
The majority of hubs do provide these services, however they actually have no obligation to do so. Each hub, by the very nature of it being a localised partnership organisation, is different. If your hub isn’t providing CPD, hire of instruments, or large-scale events, it is likely because their funding is being spent elsewhere in their programmes or the resource availability in that location is scarce.
WHY WONT MY HUB DO WHAT MY CHILD/SCHOOL WANTS?
Hubs are there to provide what is needed, not what you want. The relationship between schools and hubs is often complicated by the fact that one or more partners provide traded services, and this has been compounded by many councils seeing hub funding as their opportunity to jettison their music service into the private sector, causing costs to schools to rise. This sometimes causes a consumer mentality, where individuals feel that if they don’t get exactly what they want from their hub they are being short-changed. Hub funding is for the benefit of the whole hub area, and hubs take a strategic view of how to develop music across that area. This means that their initiatives and projects may not always exactly align with what every individual school wants at that particular time. This does not mean that your hub is ‘bad’ it just means that you and they have different views on what should be done at that particular moment in time. All hubs will be open to discussing their ideas with you, and your ideas with them, and that should be the first port of call before making judgment or public comment about hubs in general ‘not working.’
Music Hubs have for over 10 years now faced an uncertain funding future. Successive short-term funding deals, rising costs, and the delayed release of the new NPME have all compounded to make it incredibly difficult for hubs to form long-term strategic plans. Despite this, very few hub lead organisations have given up the ghost since 2012, which is a strong indication if one were needed that the hub system is indeed ‘working.’