Youth Music Programme

First Milestone Narrative Report

Organisation Name / SEND Project
Name of person completing form / Leanne Sutton
Email address for queries /
Reporting Period / From: Oct 2012 / to: Sep 2013

Guidance

Youth Music asks all grant holders to report against the activity report submitted in their application. The reporting requirements are governed by the size and duration of the grant.

Your funding agreement contains the details of all your reporting requirements and submission details, so please refer back to it if you are unsure.

The purpose of thisreport is to see how you are progressing towards meeting the outcomes set at the beginning of your project, to provide an opportunity to share with Youth Music any obstacles you may have faced and your plans to overcome them.

Once you have submitted the report and the required supporting information, and it has been approved by our Grants and Learning Team, your next grant instalment will be released.

You are required to:

  • Answer the questions on each page of the report (please note word limits represent a maximum, rather than an expected amount)
  • Download the attachments needed (budget update, declaration) – available from the grant holders section of our website), complete them, and upload them with this form.
  • You also have the option to upload photographs, video and audio. Please only upload photographs if you have the appropriate consent forms for public use, and have ticked the box on the declaration form to confirm this.

Case studies:

  • Also available to download from the grant holders section of our website is a case study template – if you would like to provide us with a case study, the template should help you to write it. Unless otherwise stated, it will be assumed that the case study can be published externally.

Completing Your Form:

Whilst completing this form, you will need to refer back to your:

  1. Stage Oneand Stage TwoApplication forms
  2. Budget form (submitted with your Stage Two application)
  3. Risk Analysis form (submitted with your Stage 2 application)

Youth Music gathers this information for a number of reasons:

  • To monitor our funded projects and ensure that grants are used to deliver high quality music-making to achieve suitable outcomes for children and young people
  • To develop a body of evidence of the reach and impact of Youth Music’s funded work and to prove the value of the work we do to external stakeholders
  • To inform programme development. By analysing the data we receive back from our funded partners, we are able to identify gaps in the reach and impact of our work and develop appropriate modules
  • To provide a baseline for more in-depth evaluation
  • To support the monitoring of progress towards our organisational goals
  • To identify areas of good practice that could support other organisations we fund.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this report. Once it has been submitted, we will endeavour to review the information and,if necessary, release your next payment within 20 working days. Should the process be delayed for any reason, we will be in touch to let you know why.

Payments and expenditure

Please note that prior to releasing your next payment, we expect you to have spent at least 85% of the amount you have been paid to date. If this is not the case, please contact to discuss your options.

Youth Music Programme – First Milestone Report

The Youth Music Milestone Report providesan opportunity for grantees to reflect on the progress of their programme of work to date, and present evidence to Youth Music in support of their findings. We are keen to hear about both the successes and challenges you have encountered in the period covered by this report, and the key learning you have taken away as a result.

  1. Please describe your progress towards achieving your project’s intended outcomes (No Word Limit)

In your Stage Two Application form you provided a list of indicators and an evaluation plan for your programme of work. Please reflect on the indicators you provided, and using your evaluation plan, provide evidence on the progress you are making towards achieving your intended outcomes.

Outcome 3:

To increase the local provision of high quality, meaningful educational music-making opportunities for young people who are facing extremely challenging circumstances and increase the instance in which learners are engaged in empowering experiences, making key decisions about their own learning and developmental path:

Increasing local provision of high quality music making opportunities:

By providing the sessions alone we instantly increased the amount of local music making opportunities. Whilst there is a community recording studio less than a mile away, it offers little music making support, offering instead access to facilities with little support or guidance. .

All sessions were delivered by a team of skilled music professionals that ensured the content was fresh, responsive and informed.Not all ofthe music leaders had vast amounts of experience in working with learner facing challenging circumstances. Some learnedthese skills quickly and really excelled, with one support worker actually becoming a music leader halfway through the programme.

Our focus on music leader training & increased CPD opportunities resulted in regular CPD sessions that supported music leaders in identifying & accessing a number of relevant training opportunities throughout the course of the programme. Examples include‘music mentoring’ with community music practitioner Phil Mullen, musical inclusion CPD training with Nottingham Music Hub, a variety of in-house workforce development training sessions including lone working, professional boundaries, project specific safeguarding & various music team skill share sessions. Most recentlytutors have started a PTLLS course.

This project has solidified a group of individual music tutors into a cohesive music team, bringing the tutors from different fields (instruments, digital production, lyrics & performance) together to plan & deliver sessions that explore key musical elements in a way that is interlinked and accessible. Tutors have shared skills and best practice in planning the most innovative & creative sessions possible for all learners & session review forms have clearly demonstrated where the tutors have reflected on their practice & revised & improved either an element of their delivery style or session content accordingly.This is of course an ongoing process and the feedback of the learners continues to drive the session content & we have seen this carry through into other projects already.

Attendance:

Day Group:

SG0194%

RH0685%

JB0989%

NW1193%

TW1296%

This group attended for min 15 weeks and successfully completed the Bronze Arts Award.

LJ0450% (14 weeks) – dropped off programme to attend vocational training

Evening Group:

Although not planned this way we ended up having three separate blocks of evening groups over the course of the year.

Oct – Dec 2012 (Instrument module):

Two attendees were both belonging to NEC

JT0267% (7 weeks)

RG0367% (7 weeks)

When the session content moved away from live instrument playing and into other aspects of music creation, both lads felt the draw of their peers and began to turn up late / fail to attend. RG03 later rejoined the programme (see Apr-Jul) after he approached the project manager with humility, stating that he had gone through a very destructive patch in his life & had been ‘stupid’ to leave the programme.

Jan – Mar 2013 (Lyrics module):

Two attendees; 1x white British, 1x dual heritage British

KS0763%

AX0863%

Attended enthusiastically for 6 weeks before KS07 moved area and transport / travel became a barrier. AX08 did not attend without KS07. KS07 has been re-enrolled on the programme this year after sorting out transport costs / arrangements & clearly having matured a little over the last 6months.

Apr – Jul 2013 (Flexible: later became Band session):

5x NEC

RG0367% (15 weeks)

JAT1071%

NA1338%

RA1450%

Also RH06 attending with peers

The large variation in attendance/commitment between band members ultimately led to the dissolving of band.

Majority voluntary self-referrals which meant that long-term commitment & motivation to complete arts award was not as successful as we’d hoped. The Style/ Structure & flexibility of evening group has been addressed & a revised plan has been put in place for the second year (see section 4).

Our plan was to replicate/mirror day content in evening session. In hindsight, this may have contributed to the poor attendance records of those learner signed up as there was too much information to pack into sessions that were 40% shorter in duration. Feedback has led us to modify evening sessions to be more fun and open ended. Ominous length of commitment (40 weeks) was also cited as a turn off. Second phase has been modified to 3 x 10 week blocks with the option / carrot of progression both within the accreditation & working towards being a young music leader & possible volunteer (this is of course only offered where appropriate in light of age, maturity etc)

Ensuring that all learners are facing challenging circumstances:

We designed & implemented three stage referral process that ensured that all young people we accepted onto the project met the criteria.

The first stage involved holding a programme launch event where all key referral partners were invited to attend a briefing that outlined clearly outlined what the programme was about, the general objectives & content of the sessionsadvised of the clear criteria that any young people must meet to get a place. This was also accompanied by a project brief & a flyer & poster that could be distributed amongst their colleagues/organisations etc.

Secondly; all key referral partners (a key nominated person from all appropriate local & city/county wide organisations) were sent a criteria & referral form that the referral partner had to fill out & return for any suitable referral.

Finally the programme manager would then set up & hold a short informal interview where one or twoof the SEND team would meet with the young person & the adult referrer. This allowed the programme manager to inform the young person about the project, the opportunities & the commitment it involves, as well as discuss any foreseeable issues & what the young person hopes to gain from the project. Once the interview was complete the team would make a decision about whether or not to give the young person a place on the course.

This three stage process made sure that the right young people were given the opportunity to get involved in the programme.

Making Key decisions about their learning & development:

IAPs/Musical goals & Session planning:Each student completed an Individual action plan (IAP) during their programme induction phase which they then reviewed with their mentor on a weekly basis. At the beginning learners set themselves one musical goal for each of the three main music modules (Lyrics & Live performance, Digital Music Production & Live Instruments). Once the modules were completed the students IAPs were reviewed & updated so that they focused on completing a primary & a secondary musical goal. Whilst the learners were supported in identifying & breaking down their goals they made the choices about what they wanted to focus on & achieve.

Although the taster sessions& the initial module content was planned in line with a general scheme of work, all sessions beyond the induction period used the learners IAPs to shapethe session content to ensure it supported each student in achieving their goals.

All of the students achievedthe majority of their goals. Some had to be scaled down & revised a little from their original form as they were ambitious, but mentors helped steer the learners so they still kept their original goal(s) at the heart of the end result/product (e.g. make an EP that uses original drum beats that I play in & record – became – make two tracks that use my recorded drum beat).

The team of tutors had a couple of keys ways in which they ensured the sessions were responsive to the learners needs.

  • Debriefing at the end of the final session of the week which enabled them to identify & discuss key content that needed to be included in next week’s sessions. The music leaders (each leading on a key module area) would use this time to use their combined skills & knowledge to support each other in making each session as responsive & inclusive to each learners goals & needs as possible.
  • Amounted white board in the music studio that the tutors wouldupdate after each session. This clearly demonstrated each learner’s progresshighlighted what tasks/element they had to achieve next. This not only enabled the tutors to know instantly what they had to focus on but also enabled the learners to take responsibility for knowing what task they were doing & what stage they were at.

From April onwards the evening group chose to have a band structure. The key elements of working as a band were discussed and sessions planned accordingly, taking into account the styles of music the group wanted to incorporate.

Feedback From partner’squestionnaire:

Considering your above observations, how far would you say that the young person was making positive decisions about their learning and development?

One partner reported significant improvement in the 3 learner referred, citing their continued attendance as ‘extraordinary’.

“All three students have grown as individuals whilst being on this project. They have clearly demonstrated their musical ability and this has been recognised by the achievement of the Arts Award.”

Arts Award Goals:

Each learner’s Arts Award goals were shaped through use of their main musical goals. Some also did some complementary digital media (making a CD cover) so that they had a really great end product. Whist some elements of the arts award had to be steered by the tutors (e.g. event visit) the learners chose (again with guidance & support from their mentor & tutors) how they would achieve their goals themselves. Each IAP had an arts award goals section which enabled them to develop & achieve their goals at their own pace.

Personal development:

As the learners’ personal development is such a key part of this project we included a ‘personal development goals’ section on the IAPs. To begin with most mentors & learners did not dive straight into identifying & tackling the personal development goals but took their time in building trust & supportive relationships. This in time allowed the learners to open up & identify the real hurdles & challenges they faced that prevented them from reaching their full potential. Once they’d spent their time building up to this point the mentees & mentors used the personal development section on the IAP to record & demonstrate progress on their goals. Again some of them achieved their goals in full, some of them (mainly those who weren’t with us for the full length of the programme) made some decent headway into overcoming the issues they identified. On reflection, the most significant outcome in relation to this element is that all the learners were empowered enough to recognise & identify what the key issues/challenges were for themselves; even if they didn’t fully achieve them, they were given the space & the skills to be able to start to tackle them.

Outcome 4:

Improve young peoples’ self-esteem, confidence, social and psychological wellbeing by providing embedded holistic mentor support. Increase young people’s motivation to engage in education and training to ensure that we improve both learners and tutors knowledge of positive educational and developmental music-making opportunities in their locality.

Improve young peoples’ self-esteem, confidence, social and psychological wellbeing by providing embedded holistic mentor support.

Mentoring sessions:

Weekly mentoring sessions enabled the learners & their mentors to have regular catch up sessions giving the learners space to talk about their lives, say what was going on for them & know that they were being prioritised. Through use of anecdotal evidence & the later introduction of a mentor ‘Holistic Scale Monitoring’ form the mentors have been able to observe and record a number of behavioural indicators that evidence the overall improvement of each learner’s confidence & overall wellbeing.

All mentors experienced their mentees reported negative behaviours or incidents that they had been involved in. This in itself was significant, showing that they trusted the relationship and felt listened to. This gave the mentees the opportunity to reflect on the choices they were making & paved the way for the mentors & mentees to discuss different was they could approach challenging situations in the future. For example one learner reported staying up till early morning using social media sites with the result that he had no energy and was missing crucial appointments. Though there were a number of relapses, mentees reported making positive changes to their lifestyle in response to the support given.