Sing Education recruits, develops and manages the very best music teachers for our partner schools. Yes, we look for vocal and instrumental talent, but we also assess whether candidates have the skills to successfully teach young children. Do they fit our culture, uphold our ethos? Only the best will do.
Sing Education teaching specialists are music graduates from leading universities and conservatoires in the UK and worldwide. We regularly attract talent from top tier institutions such as the Royal College of Music, Royal Northern College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Specifically, we look for professional musicians with a love for sharing their passion with the next generation. We look for music teachers who are able to connect with and inspire primary age children. We want them to have a natural ability to engage children in active music-making in the classroom setting.
We assess applicants on how they are able to demonstrate an engagement with our Sing Education core values. Can they inspire a passion for music, for instance. Can they demonstrate how they can do that? What experience have they had? In what settings have they been able to inspire a passion for music? Are they confident and resourceful? Can they give an example of where they’ve had to be confident and resourceful in the face of challenge in a work or a music performance setting? What was the impact? What was the result of that?
We assess their ability to work both within our team at Sing Education, as well as within a school setting. We consider how well they engage with training and development. Will they be a team player? Will they give suggestions? Will they be professional? How will they come across? How will they represent us within their school setting and how will they maintain the school’s high standard and keep things consistent?
A final, yet equally important area of assessment is to see how well a candidate is able to deliver our resources on a practical level. We assess their teaching style and confidence. Do they connect with the resources? Do they grasp the teaching approaches that we use? Are they able to put that across in the way they teach?
Stress-free music. That’s what schools say about Sing Education.
One of the ways we reinforce this differentiator is by taking full ownership of the recruitment, onboarding, training, performance management and professional development of our teachers. In our schools, the senior leadership team does not have to take on these responsibilities, freeing them to focus on other important areas of curriculum, operations or general school management. We work in partnership with schools to make sure that our Sing Education teacher is fully inducted into all the systems and policies relevant to their placement setting.
The joy of working with Sing Education is that for you as a school, you don’t have to worry about quality assurance, recruitment or management. As we look after all of that, you are able to focus on ensuring your pupils are receiving the highest standard of music education. We worry about the rest.
For example, in the past, where we’ve had a teacher need to leave their placement after a year or two in post, their school has naturally been disappointed to lose someone they love so much. But then, when the school has received their next teacher from us, they’re even happier! In this process of transition, the school realises that it’s not just that one teacher we provide – that, actually, we have a whole bank of fantastic teachers and that our training and teaching methodology enables learning to be consistent across all of our staff.
As mentioned, Sing Education teachers are sourced from the top universities and music conservatoires. However, our investment in high quality music provision doesn’t stop there.
We unite our staff together under one curricular architecture, one teaching methodology and one company ethos – i.e., “Every Child Has A Voice.” From onboarding to regular supervision from our directors to the app teachers use to communicate with one another during term time, we’ve designed a teaching experience that prioritises and rewards excellence through teamwork.
For example, we have a programme of collaborative learning between Sing Education teachers called ‘team teaching’. So how does it work in practice?
At the start of each academic year, we organise our teaching timetables so that staff can be released from their usual school placement for a day or two to work with another Sing Education teacher. Alternatively, teachers may go into a new school on a day they’re not typically scheduled to work with Sing Education. This extracurricular time is then dedicated to peer-to-peer observation and to the process of self-reflection based on working together with another teacher. We encourage the observing teacher to look critically at key practice areas such as, “How does this teacher create a positive and safe environment?, “How do they put across the teaching principles,” and “How can I implement those types of things in my own teaching?”
In addition to peer-to-peer learning, we also have a programme of coaching and support for junior Sing Education teachers. We organise term timetables so that our more senior teachers can be released to go in to work with more junior practitioners. This is especially beneficial during a teacher’s first two or three terms of teaching with us. When senior team members are able to go in and support their junior counterparts on site, in their regular school placement, the feedback and real-time mentoring is highly impactful.
That said, Sing Education knows the dividends of this approach go even further than schools receiving great provision.
Our teachers themselves benefit from working as part of a team. By joining Sing Education, they become part of a wide network of support. They build relationships with other teachers, friendships with other teachers, so that they can readily draw on peer expertise and knowledge. They also build skills critical to supporting their own teaching. And beyond the classroom we know that team teaching encourages staff to draw on one another for moral support and for career guidance. The world of teaching and education is often thought of as a really hard and isolating place to work. But, Sing Education believes that being part of a bigger team means we can support one another and draw on the strength of others to make sure that we’re all having a positive teaching experience.
