Background

In 2003 Youth Music, using its Lottery resources, awarded national organisation Youngchoirs.net £620,000 to run a Singing Communities project in association with ContinYou. The project ran for two years and covered six locations all with significant, and contrasting, degrees of deprivation: Cumbria, Hartlepool, the Isle of Wight, Dorset, Derby and Sandwell. The project reached over 14,000 children and provided training opportunities for 862 teachers and singing leaders.  

The Singing Communities partnership programme set out to find out to what extent singing makes a difference to young people and their communities. The main aims were to:

• Build and develop better singing communities through intensive singing activity.
• Develop training opportunities at different levels; for vocal leaders, artists, teachers and community arts workers.
• Work with different groups and communities, for example with established singing organisations and local strategic partnerships.
• Explore the links between singing and other activities such as sport.
• Work with different groups and communities, for example, linking with appropriate agencies including Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships, Sure Start and Early Excellence Centres.
• Explore music from a range of cultures.

The Outcomes

The project, which ran for two years, was successful across many fronts. For the children, schools and the wider communities themselves, the success of Singing Communities was particularly strong in social terms.

Children
There was strong evidence that many of the programmes increased children’s ability to network and share, improving confidence, memory and concentration as well as changing their attitudes towards singing and music. In many cases, it has also shown how singing can pull together disparate groups of children.

Schools
For teachers, there was significant evidence of increased confidence and willingness to “think out of the box” as well as technical skills being increased and improved. In addition, the Singing Communities programme helped to bring together people who often work in isolation to share and collaborate. Through the programme, head teachers, teachers, leaders, parents, carers and some local funding bodies were awakened to the high standards that their children can achieve given high quality programmes which capture their interest and imagination.

Community
The emphasis on community and encouraging adult leaders and carers to take part and work and learn with the children was enormously successful.  Overall, the project promoted recognition amongst many who were previously unconvinced of the importance of singing for young people.

Finally, feedback from most of the regions demonstrated that the Project encouraged an embedding of the culture of singing aiding sustainability.

“I wish the feelings could be bottled, as this is what the Project is all about – opening windows of opportunity which can be grasped with both hands. Children who come from any walk of life who meet challenges all the way in the education system need this kind of inspiration to give them platforms to succeed.”
Project Leader, Derby

“This has been a really effective way of getting people who would not normally take part to see that they can do it, show their children that they can do it and, in some cases, follow it up afterwards with employable skills or skill enhancement.” 
Project Leader, Hartlepool
 
“Singing has become the norm in the school rather than being elitist”
Sandwell Teacher

“I have learned that singing is just as important as anything else”
Jeremiah, Devonshire Junior School, Sandwell, 9

The future

Building on the success of Singing Communities, Youth Music is now embarking upon a continuation of this programme. This new initiative, Super Singing Communities, will incorporate the best practice and the lessons learned from the initial Singing Communities programme, creating new opportunities for young people to sing and raise the profile and standard of group singing across schools and community organisations.

For more information on how you can get involved and help to fund a Super Singing Community near you please
visit our Fundraising section.


Further Information and Links

The original Singing Communities website provides a lot of background and case studies from each of the areas involved in the programme.
www.singingcommunities.com

As part of their local Singing Community in Sandwell, Ex-Cathedra developed a project called Singing Playgrounds that has been recognised internationally for its innovative approach to transforming the cuture of singing across the whole school.
For more information please 
visit our Singing Case Studies section.

If you are interested in downloading the full evaluation of the project, please visit our Evaluations Section.