While many State School music programs delivered by specialist music teachers have been challenged over the last five years with systematic changes to the Arts Curriculum, one of our local primary schools has been proudly bucking the trend. Glenview State School has almost half of their currently enrolled students participating in their instrumental music program. Senior teacher and classroom music specialist, Chelsea Harry, said of a student cohort of around 276, to have nearly 45% of students actively participating in regular instrumental tuition was undoubtedly a huge achievement, and a real feather in the schools cap.
Mrs Harry said that since the inception of a push for instrumental tuition at the school 10 years ago, she had also seen Glenview’s academic scores soar, with the school achieving excellent Naplan scores, often ranking in the top six schools in the region. While she acknowledged the high calibre of teaching staff and positive learning culture at the school contributing to ongoing academic excellence, she felt there was definitely a correlation between having an active instrumental program with high engagement, and student development and overall results.
“The decoding skills, social and emotional skills, the higher order thinking skills, the multisensory load that learning an instrument puts on the brain is irrefutably paying dividends in our academic achievements,” said Mrs Harry.
“I have research articles and data to prove that learning an instrument increases the brain size of a child and increases working memory capacity. Not to mention the social and emotional benefits that come from small, focussed, tuition,” she said.
School principal Peter Llyod said he was pleased to support the passion of his school educators, and had always valued the arts. He said the level of joy he witnessed in students engaging with music at the school was inspiring. He said music was essentially a language, and he believed it had a positive effect on learning capacity.
“We are very pleased that our academic performance is amongst the highest in the region and our report card data shows our students have achieved at a high level. Having a music program taught by passionate educators that nurtures a joy of learning in our students is definitely a piece of the puzzle,” said Mr Llyod.
Mrs Harry said she was pleased to be part of a wonderful culture on the Sunshine Coast that supported the arts. She said she is concerned that over the last few years the dedicated teaching of music and the arts had been diminished and devalued across the State and she strongly supports the movement to get music tuition back into the classrooms as a year-long, weekly discipline.
Main image: Classroom music specialist Chelsea Harry with some of this years’ instrumental music students.