Activities (including partnership work)
Arts Council England have asked us to show in our next business plan how we are going to work with young people who do not currently access our services. We have a number of strategies already in place and there is work in progress on some new ways of working.
By September 2018 BEAT will be working with the most disabled of our young people. This programme will be called Access All Areas and will lead to the development of an orchestra/ensemble for this group of young people. BEAT will work with Open Up Orchestras to devise an appropriate IT platform to support this work. Staff from BEAT and Mapledown School have been to visit the work of a similar orchestra in Weston-super-Mare and will visit another group in Birmingham later in the academic year.
The London Youth Choir will be working in four schools where there is currently low provision and/or take up of choir places. We hope to expand choir numbers and improve practice in these settings through this specialist work.
Our own One Voice Choirs will be delivering choral workshops in another four schools to expand further the work of the London Youth Choir.
BEAT has been offered a grant to offer jazz harp workshops to young people at Canada Villa Youth Centre. BEAT will continue to offer programmes to the young people attending the youth centre, free of charge.
There will be a string workshop later in the academic year – open to all beginner strings, to encourage participation in groups and orchestras.
A level Music and Music Technology results this year have been very positive. Both sets of results were higher than the national average and there were A* grades achieved in both subjects. A number of students are going on to study music at university – to include conservatoires such as the Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Leeds College of Music.
There will be a song writing competition for ages 7-12 for next year’s music festival. Sharon Broughall is in correspondence with a local and well known professional musician to try to enlist him as a judge. The prize will consist of the song being performed at the festival.
Staffing
Tim Hallas and Nicholas Bentley have joined us to teach Music Technology A level. Kerry Reid has started as Head of East Barnet Music Centre. Fred Syed has started as conductor of Barnet Youth Wind Orchestra, and Ben James has taken over as conductor of Barnet Youth Orchestra.
Fundraising and grants
Our fundraiser has submitted a bid from the National Lottery to provide IT equipment to enable us to reach more students. We are awaiting the result of this bid. We are also supporting a bid for Rhythmic to extend their remit and we hope the Arts Council will agree to us submitting a bid to Grants for the Arts – we await their response.
We have also applied for Friday Afternoon funding and Postcode Lottery grant.
Six new scholarships have started this year funded by the John Lyons Charity in addition to the six we started last year. We also have two new scholarships from the Mayor of London’s Music Charity.
Our fundraising strategy at the moment is “Give 5 pounds and we’ll make a sound” – five pounds would enable a child eligible for pupil premium to have a lesson in a group of 4.
We shall be starting to look at funding for our work with Mapledown School for next year. We will also start to look for funding for the next Royal Albert Hall concert (2020 – awaiting date from RAH)
Trustees
We are very grateful for all of the work that trustees have undertaken this year in supporting the update of our policies. The Safeguarding Policy is now on the website with the Procedures in the staff area. All staff have confirmed they have seen and read the Policy and Procedures.
The reserves policy is also complete and all other policies completed will be discussed at the trustees meeting.
Discussions are ongoing with potential trustees to take on the role of treasurer – the Chair will discuss this with other trustees in September.
Work with Music 8 London
Music 8 London Heads have agreed to run a shared programme of CPD to all 8 hubs. BEAT has hosted a safeguarding course which was also attended by staff from other hubs. BEAT staff will be offered a range of CPD days to attend in other hubs.
The voice of young people
The CEO has met with Mark Blundell from OnSide, the organisation working on the new youth zone in Barnet. We will continue to discuss requests from young people they are working with to create an offer for the new youth facility in Colindale.
After a survey of students they were unanimous they did not wish to change the current concert dress.
Visits by the CEO
The CEO is visiting schools who require a free one hour consultation.
Other visits include Music Mark meetings, The Music Mark Conference, the Incorporated Society of Musicians, Arts Council meetings, Music8London, and John Lyons Charity meeting.
The CEO will be working as a mentor for the Arts Council – this will be to mentor another hub that needs help in an area the CEO might have expertise in. Training will begin later this month.
She has been asked to speak at a conference for the top 200 inspirational women in business in December.
