Ever had an idea that exceeded your expectations. In the search for funding of various types to upgrade my new music department I stumbled upon Musical Futures and some fantastic ideas for personalised learning in relation to the extended curriculum. So I decided to persue the idea in my new school having had moderate success with it in my former post. Basically students get the opportunity to develop group performance skills and the potential of performing to a large audience at a county based event. During the eight week programme students will gain basic knowledge of a new instrument to them and meet industry professionals from time to time to assist in their development.
So having broadcast the information to students who I thought would benefit from the experience the first week was a disaster. Two students attended and I ended up leading them in a workshop about playing the blues, they were both capable guitarists. As a result I decided to advertise the program to the whole school on two seperate occassions and to my astonishment the second session happened and I had 24 students attending whch created a whole new problem. That equates to 6-7% of the school population.
I now had a new set of opportunities to play with and have unwittingly created sustainabilit to the course by making two maybe three cohorts rather than one cohort of two bands that would eventually potentially lose interest. It just goes to show that we never fully appreciate the enthusiasm of our students until you stick your neck out and run an activity like this. As a foot note the program successfully won a bid of £2000 for tuition fees, instruments and transport costs to the events.