Teaching is now moving quite rapidly to becoming a masters level profession.
With this in mind, it makes a lot of sense to ensure that music is included wherever possible in this process. Primary school teachers have received very little in the way of initiaal training in music over the last two decades, but this can be put right through including music in the portfolio of post-QTS professional development. The danger of not doing so is that music and singing may gradually fall back to the marginalised position they occupied before SingUp and the COP. If every school is to remain a "singing school" once the SingUp programme has ended, then every school needs its own singing champion and teacher qualified to lead and develop singing.
Edge Hill University, the UK's largest provider of in-service professional development for teachers has been working in collaboration with the Voices Foundation and SingUp to address this very need. The subsequent partnership is now able to offer M level accreditation for music free of charge for up to 60 M level credits, which is sufficient for the award of the PGCert (Mus Ed). This is an ideal qualification for individuals who already hold QTS and wish to progress to a subject leadership position. Thereafter, the PGCert counts as 60 of the 180 credits needed for a full MA.
The aim is a "win win" situation - professional progress toward a master's level qualificatuon for the individual teacher and a school that continues to develop its singing through appropriately qualified leadership. Why not give it a go?
