MAC Makes Music was commissioned by the Fair Play project to support with training and workforce development. Fair Play is a Youth Music funded project led by Worcestershire, Warwickshire, and Gloucestershire Music Education Hubs which aims to improve and embed inclusive practice; https://www.severnarts.org.uk/fair-play.

We delivered a series of online training sessions which were open to anyone working or interested in working musically with children and young people.

If you would like to access the recordings please contact Severn Arts on [email protected].

Developing an Inclusive Mindset, Dr Phil Mullen

This session covered different understandings of and key ideas within musical inclusion. It focused on the link between musical, personal and social outcomes and how to approach barriers to learning. The session also looked into Self-Determination Theory also known as the theory of basic psychological wellbeing.

Leadership, Dr Phil Mullen

This session looked at basic leadership approaches and styles, strategies for leadership and leaders’ responsibilities. It also looked at the different roles we take in a session.

Reflective Practice, Dr Phil Mullen

This session addressed key questions such as:

What is reflective practice?
Why is it useful?
How can we reflect best?
When do we reflect and what that means?
What is the importance of our positionality or stance towards things?

Putting Inclusive Pedagogy into Practice, Dr Phil Mullen

This session explored the practical application of inclusive pedagogy in a variety of different musical circumstances, drawing on aspects of inclusive pedagogy including:

Creativity

Accepting and working with what the child or young person brings

Shared ownership

The session also looked at tips for embedding inclusivity in the mainstream classroom.

Music Technology to Inform Inclusive Practice, Kris Halpin

This session explored the use of music technology across different education settings and how it can be incorporated with other instruments for effective, inclusive group music-making. Using the Social Model of Disability, Kris discussed the value of combining tech and non-tech instruments, speaking from his own lived experience as a disabled musician. He also gave some practical demonstrations of different forms of music technology, including his Mi.Mu gloves.

Supporting Children to Capture their own Progression and Learning, Ann Jones

A friendly and fun session that involved working together to deepen our understanding of how to capture young people’s perceptions of their own learning. By treating young people as team members and thinking creatively about how we ask questions, we can support learning in a way that is effective and inclusive. The session covered:

The importance of setting goals together; how to make goals include young people’s voices, using recordings and cameras to capture progress
Using inclusive reflection and young people’s input to guide and inform our planning that will support their individual musical journeys and inform our teaching practice
Sharing knowledge together as professionals: Challenging preconceptions about learning, examining what progress we and the young people want to make and considering where this meets and where it may diverge.

Participant-Led Intercultural Music-Making, Natalie Mason & Germa Adan

A session delivered by Natalie Mason and Germa Adan from Friction Arts’ Multicultural Music Making Project.

The session included:

An overview of the Multicultural Music Making project and our ‘Principles of Practice’ - the techniques we use to facilitate participant-led music-making sessions
A practical exploration of culturally-responsive music-making practices
Time to reflect on how relevant and responsive music-making contributes to improving inclusion, diversity and equality in music education

MAC Makes Music