Safeguarding and youth voice in music education – event overview

The third meeting of our emerging network on safeguarding in classical music education was held on Friday 25^th November at The Purcell School (with very many thanks to deputy head James Harding for arranging this and to the Purcell School for providing the venue as well as refreshments and lunch). Having an organisation which is at the heart of training elite classical musicians in the UK – and indeed internationally – offering to host this event is an important symbolic gesture about the sector taking a lead on this issue. Not only that, but our meeting was held in the Liszt Room, with portraits of 19^th century pianist and composer Franz Liszt all over the walls as well as one of his original manuscripts on display.

Abuse in music education: institutional perspectives – event overview

Following the event on abuse in music education in September 2015 at the Institute of Musical Research, on 6^th May 2016 I lead an event on abuse in music education for organisations from the sector, generously hosted by Trinity College London. This was attended by around 20 representatives from classical music education organisations from across the country, with four speakers: Anne Tiivas, Director of the Child Protection in Sport Unit at the NSPCC, Louise Exton, who runs a helpline for whistleblowers in sport for the NSPCC, Dr Liz Haddon from the University of York, and Professor Pamela Burnard from the University of Cambridge.. It was a very rewarding and thought-provoking day thanks to some excellent presentations as well as a high quality of discussion among attendees.

Abuse in music education: event overview September 2015

In September 2015, Lucy Delap (University of Cambridge), Ian Pace (City University) and I organised a half-day event for academic researchers to present their work to classical music education institution leaders on the theme of abuse in music education. We wanted to bring together researchers who were working on related areas, to start a conversation responding to the slew of high profile court cases around abuse in music education that had come to light since 2013 (see Ian Pace’s blog posts on recent and historic cases, as well as media discussions). We could not find any researchers working directly on abuse in music education – whether sexual, physical or emotional/psychological abuse.