It is first thing in the morning at Shireland CBSO academy in West Bromwich, and the school corridors are filled with music. Scattered throughout the classrooms are a steel pans class, a keyboard group, a guitar group, a wind band, a jazz orchestra, a percussion group, a string orchestra and a choir.
“My favourite time of day is when we open the gates in the mornings and you’ve got all these children carrying in various shapes and sizes of musical instruments, and it’s just completely the norm. It’s part of the culture here,” said the school principal, David Green.
He leads the first state school in the UK to be set up in conjunction with a professional orchestra – the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) – and music is central to almost everything that happens here.
It is incorporated into lessons of all subjects, not just in dedicated music classes, and every child is provided, free of charge, with hire of an instrument for which they receive tuition every week, provided by SIPS music and arts service in Sandwell .
There are Christmas and summer concerts, after-school clubs, weekly ensemble classes, and sessions with CBSO musicians and guests, who come in to give demonstrations and inspirational talks, as well as school trips to see the orchestra in action.
“We do things differently here but we want to make it clear this is a normal school and it is a school for everybody. I am really passionate about making sure that any child feels they have a place here, regardless of background, family income, musical exposure,” said Green.
“The majority of students who come here haven’t played an instrument before. But all we ask is they come with a passion to learn.”
Musicians and teachers have raised alarm at the rapid decline in music education in state schools in recent years. The number of entries for GCSE music fell by 12.5% from 2022-23, while A-level music entries fell by 45% from 2010-23.
There are fears that overstretched and underresourced schools do not have capacity to provide high-quality music education, and young people’s interest is waning as a result.
“There’s definitely a crisis around the cut in the number of teaching hours dedicated to music in state schools, and a similar decrease in the number of specialist teachers available to teach music,” said Matt Griffiths, the chief executive of Youth Music, a national charity supporting young people in music.
“It’s a very real and current danger that music is becoming something more for the privileged. It’s becoming increasingly posh, if you like, to have the opportunity to make music.”
A recent report the charity produced, based on interviews with more than 2,000 young people, found that music was often cited as their favourite activity. “If music isn’t part of a school’s life, then it’s difficult for it to catch on with young people – but the contradiction is they do really love music, there’s a real eagerness for it,” Griffiths said.
At Shireland, year 7 pupil Tobias proudly shows off his viola, which he is learning to play after picking it up for the first time when he started at the school a few months ago.
He saw dozens of musicians play their instruments at a fair held at the start of the academic year, which allows the pupils to see instruments first-hand before deciding which they want to learn.
“I love playing it. Tuesdays are my favourite day because I get my music lesson and ensemble practice,” he said. “It has made me more responsible because I think I was a bit lazy. I never used to get up and actually do anything except playing games but now I’ve got this, I’m always practising.”
The school opened in 2023 and has 300 students, but it will have 900 when it reaches full capacity, and it is intended that all pupils will take GCSE music.
Green said there was an emphasis on not just teaching western classical music – instruments on offer range from tubas to tablas – and students also get access to recording studios and can form bands according to their own musical passions.
The school is in the borough of Sandwell in the West Midlands, the 12th most deprived local authority in England – 38% of pupils at Shireland are on free school meals – and is trying to level the playing field in music.
“If we have a broader pipeline into the music industry, we will be more representative, more inclusive, more relevant,” said Catherine Arlidge, a CBSO violinist who works with pupils in the school and sits on its performance and standards committee.
“Imagine if every major arts organisation had an affiliation with a school. Imagine how transformative that could be – if there was a state school in your area that specialised in theatre, or film, or dance, or music, or visual art. Then you would have a choice. I think it’s a model that could be absolutely transformative to cultural education.”
There are other projects across the country that boost access to music by bringing orchestras into schools in disadvantaged areas, but Shireland hopes its model of fully incorporating music, and the orchestra, into daily school life can become a blueprint for schools elsewhere.
“It’s open source really, there’s nothing secret here – if people see something positive and they want to take it and can work on it, then that’s wonderful,” said Green.
