Birmingham and the West Midlands swept the boards at the Music & Drama Education Awards on 22 February 2024 at the Marriot Hotel in London. The awards celebrated the extraordinary contribution to music and drama education by arts professionals, schools and arts organisations.
The winners included:
OUTSTANDING DRAMA EDUCATION RESOURCE
Prospero, Paul Sutton, C&T
Dr Paul Sutton, Artistic Director, C&T and Prospero said
“This is such a fantastic tribute to what we’re trying to develop with Prospero. Our goal has always been to demystify the potential of technology in theatre education - that’s why we built Prospero, to make digital tools available to everyone. This award recognises how far we have come on this journey and its huge potential for schools and artists in the West Midlands.”
OUTSTANDING MUSIC EDUCATION RESOURCE
Choir Maker, Rebecca Ledgard, Ex Cathedra said
“Ex Cathedra is absolutely thrilled to have won the Outstanding Music Education Resource category at the 2024 Music & Drama Education Awards. Our Choir Maker programme was created with the aim of enabling and inspiring Key Stage 3 teachers and pupils to establish and develop a thriving school choir.
It supports secondary schools who want to build a culture of singing. With the click of a button they can have our team of vocal tutors, instrumentalists and conductors in their classroom.”
EXCELLENCE IN PRIMARY / EARLY YEARS (MUSIC AND DRAMA)
Listen Imagine Compose Primary, Nancy Evans, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group said
“Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG), with its project partners Birmingham City University and Sound and Music, are delighted to have won the Excellence in Primary/Early Years (Music and Drama) award for Listen Imagine Compose Primary. This project, which took place over two years, enabled nearly 500 children from 8 schools in Birmingham and Bristol to compose their own music with the support of professional composers and musicians. BCMG has supported young people to compose in and out of school for over twenty years, We hope this award will raise the profile of children’s composing and encourage many more teachers to feel confident teaching composing in their primary school. “
DRAMA AND THEATRE EDUCATION EDITOR’S AWARD
Brays School, Birmingham
Artist in Residence Harry Dawes said
“ Brays School is delighted to have won The Drama and Theatre Magazine Editor's Award for 2024 for The Creative Space. This is our wonderful immersive theatre studio, where we run weekly workshops for all our children. In The Space we give the children visceral experiences relating to our thematic curriculum, that expand and enhance their learning opportunities. We feel this model greatly helps the children in their learning and could be of great benefit to other schools.
Working in partnership with artist Harry Dawes, The Space has run continuously since 2010 and is an integral part of the children's life at Brays. We have now covered upwards of thirty different themes and run over 5000 sessions. In our own small way we are proud to be part of the vibrant arts scene in Birmingham, that has played such an important part in the city's cultural development.
Steve Ball, Director of Birmingham Arts School commented
“Despite the challenges facing education and the arts in Birmingham its great to see that the City and the region continues to lead the way in cultural learning providing rich arts engagement opportunities for tens of thousands of children and young people. Many congratulations to the winners.”
EXCELLENCE IN SEND - FINALISTS
Services For Education - Music Service
As previous winners at the Music & Drama Education Awards in the Outstanding Music Education Resource in 2021, Services For Education were finalists in this year's Excellence in SEND.
Head of the Music Service and Head of the Birmingham Music Education Partnership (Music Hub) Stuart Birnie said, we were thrilled to be shortlisted for the Excellence in SEND this year and we were amongst an extremely strong field of finalists. I was proud for our Music Education Hub partners BCMG and Ex Cathedra as they do terrific work for schools and young people in Birmingham on behalf of the Hub. The evening proved that both Music and the Arts are alive in Birmingham and we will go from strength to strength in reaching more young people.
Our application was for a fantastic new resource Count Me In! i
It is an innovative and practical multi-media resource for making music Inclusively for children and young people across the spectrum of neurodiversity, including those with severe or profound learning difficulties. It has been developed by the University of Roehampton in partnership with ourselves and our Head of Inclusion Sophie Gray, with funding from Youth Music. It was launched on Tuesday, July 11, 2023.
Count Me In! comprises an extensive resource for class teachers, teaching assistants and non-music-specialist staff enabling them to better support children with learning difficulties and disabilities in special and mainstream schools and colleges, as well as supporting musicians from music services, hubs and other arts organisations visiting schools.
It is based on the widely respected Sounds of Intent framework, which encourages and enables teachers and others to tailor activities for their pupils’ and students’ particular levels of musical development. Pieces of music are ‘deconstructed’ into separate activities that are individually designed for ‘sound-makers’, ‘pattern-makers’, ‘motif-makers’ and ‘song-makers’ so that all young people can join in music-making at the same time.
