Preparing students for the future is a hot topic right now, and with good reason. According to the World Economic Forum, 65% of children starting school today will go on to do jobs that don’t exist yet. For those of us who work in education, this presents a rather troubling dilemma: if we don’t know half of what they’ll be doing, what are we supposed to teach them?

“Research shows that if parents engage with their child’s education, the attainment of the child will increase by 15%, no matter what the social background of their family.” (Oxford School Improvement, The Pupil Premium)

At St Andrew’s CoE School in Croydon, we are passionate about building strength, resilience and confidence in every student, in order to give them the best chance of success and fulfilment in life.

There’s been a growing number of headlines pointing out the sharp decline in Music provision in school. Rocksteady Music School, however, is completely bucking the trend with its disruptive approach of teaching children to play in bands from the outset.

Literacy in the choral music classroom is demonstrated when students are able to read pitch notation, manipulate rhythmic symbols, and execute dynamic and technical markings in the written score. Students are simultaneously singing correct pitches, changing the pitch durations according to the rhythmic structure, carefully raising or lowering the volume, and increasing or decreasing tempo of the notes based on the technical instructions notated in the score.