1. Children and Young People

Children and Young People – Annual Report 18-19

Pupils taking part in First Access activities:

  • 27% of Wiltshire primary school children1 (up from 20% in the previous year)
  • 10,407 pupils up from 7,775 last year (+33.8%) as more schools syndicate their First Access across year groups

Pupils learning an instrument or singing through individual and small group tuition:

  • 4,524 down from 4,908 last year (we’re exploring why this decrease might have taken place.)
  • + a further 919 learning in large groups (not First Access)

Pupils receiving subsidised school-based instrumental / vocal tuition on account of disadvantage or need (including SEN/D)2:

  • 667 pupils up from 377 last year (+43%)
  • 127 of the 667 pupils supported had Special Educational Needs and / or Disabilities (SEN/D) (a 65% increase on the previous year)

Pupils hiring instruments from our county-wide scheme:

  • 682 up from 647 last year
  • 126 of these received subsidised instrument hire on account of disadvantage or need, up from 80 last year.
  • 30 of the pupils receiving subsidies had Special Education Needs and / or Disabilities (SEN/D) (up from 14 in the previous year.)

Children and young people taking part in ensembles, groups and bands:

  • 8,729 up from 7,986 last year (+8.5%)3
  • Group/ensemble/band opportunities supported by our funding and/or provided by Associates4
  • 168 ensembles down from 190 last year as we funded fewer project-based initiatives.
  • 270 school-based ensembles up from 243 in the previous year

Associate Organisations that ran their own programmes of performance events and activities reported 286 different music related performances attended by an estimated 10668 children and young people, of whom 7563 received reduced entry prices through in house or county schemes. They also provided 85 different participatory activities to approx. 3488 C&YP from at least 62 different schools

Music Cluster Activity Projects that we funded reached approx. 5,000 pupils in 119 different schools.

As part of supporting musical progression we commissioned 4 Music Industry Careers Events from Riverbank Studios, Wiltshire Music Centre and Wiltshire Creative, attended by 103 young people from 12 different secondary schools across the county (and their parents / carers) backed up with a new Careers In the Music Industry resource.

“Just got back from this event, absolutely brilliant! The speakers were great – lots of insight into the industry and how to make a living. If you are a young musician looking to get into the music industry, sign up to the next event.”

School teacher in Wiltshire speaking about a Music Industry Event funded by Wiltshire Music Connect.

We created a series of Why Music? resources to provide information and advice to children and young people (and their families) when making decisions about their music learning.  These resources are available both in print and online.

“I found your website full of so much information and believe that we are very fortunate to have such great music provision in the county.”

Parent of a young musician in Wiltshire


Footnotes:

  1. The vast majority of children taking part in First Access were in primary schools. The total primary school population was 38,904 in January 2019.
  2. We invested £103,118 in school tuition subsidies this year (up from £54,500 in the previous year) – 17% of our hub funding (up from 9% in the previous year.)
  3. This figure includes school-based groups which the Hub does not directly support.
  4. We have not funded/subsidised all of these, although we support Associates in a range of ways.