Engaging with and Communicating Music Provision, Education, Activities, and Performance Opportunities to Children and Young People across Nottinghamshire

Co(l)laboratory 2025 Research Placement

A trio of cheerful young children in a classroom play music together on a flute, guitar, and violin

Key Details

Deadline: 11:59pm Sunday 02 March 2025

Funding offer: Candidates receive a tax-free bursary of £1,300, paid in 2 instalments.

Project start date: Monday 28 April 2025

Working hours: Part-time, fixed term (minimum 14hrs hrs per week) until 11 July 2025

Working style: Flexible working supported with some in-person training and meeting requirements. Exact working pattern to be agreed between successful candidate and lead supervisor.

Certification: On successful completion, candidates will receive a formal certificate of recognition from Nottingham Trent University and the University of Nottingham.

Project Supervisors

Lead Supervisor: Dr Peter Woods, University of Nottingham
Co-Supervisor: Dr Elizabeth Kelly, University of Nottingham
Co-Supervisor: Dr Carol Adlam, Nottingham Trent University
Community Supervisor: Sooree Pillay, Orchestras Live

About The Project

Nottingham and Nottinghamshire are creative hubs but, according to a Counter Culture report (ACE funded, 2022), while they have ‘most of the elements that can be combined into a strategy to comprise a Music City; it does not yet have the strategy’. Nationally, music provision is suffering. The Cultural Learning Alliance reported in May 2024 that Arts education in schools is a ‘stark picture of erosion and inequality’. 42% of schools no longer enter any pupils for Music GCSE, the vacancy rate for teachers of Music has increased six fold, and teacher recruitment in Music has dropped by 56%. We recognise that this will have a consequent effect on talent development, cultural and arts organisations and venues, culture and community of a place, health and wellbeing, and more.

Nottingham and Nottinghamshire have live music venues, a wide variety of music outputs, varied audiences, and a highly respected music education system. Also, the Universities for Nottingham have embarked on a three-year partnership with the BBC Concert Orchestra, running from 2023-2026. It is the collective hope that this partnership supports the already strong musical and cultural offer and provision of the city and the wider area, supports talent development and retention in Nottinghamshire, enables greater access to a wider range of music education and performance, and reaches less-reached communities and contributes to wider social impact, including wellbeing outcomes.

To address this, a Nottinghamshire Music Steering Group has recently been established (September 2024), bringing together over 20 organisations involved in music education, provision, events, and performances.

Collectively, this group recognised the need to provide a more joined-up approach to the delivery, provision, and opportunities for music education and performance for children and young people across Nottinghamshire. At the moment, there is a severe drop off in music access and engagement from children in Nottinghamshire after primary school.

This project therefore arises out of this identified community and partner need to address the engagement with and communication of music provision, events, opportunities, and performances for children and young people. The outcome of this project will be to create an inclusive and accessible visualisation of all music-related activity that children and young people can access in the region, enabling children and young people, parents and carers to know the opportunities on offer and, simultaneously, enabling the community and cultural organisations to have a holistic overview of the provision and identify gaps and areas of future focus.

Project Aims

The research aims are as follows:

To understand the current landscape of children and young people-accessible music education, events, performance, and other music-related opportunities across the region.
To visualise this information in an accessible and inclusive way for children, young people, parents, carers, and organisations to know what the current offer is.
To understand the gaps in the provision in terms of: age, geographical area, musical genre/style/form.
To consult children and young people from across the region to amplify their voices and uncover what they would like to see in terms of their region’s music provision in the future.

What will a successful candidate be doing?

The successful candidate will:

Complete a desk-based survey of the opportunities currently offered to children and young people in terms of music education, events, performance, and other music-related opportunities across the region by researching relevant organisations’ websites and conversations with relevant individuals.
Organise this into a database.
Undertake data analysis of what opportunities there currently are to identify gaps in provision.
Collate opportunities into an accessible and inclusive visualisation for children, young people, parents, carers, and organisations to know what the current offer is.
Observe and support relevant activities led by Orchestras Live.
Conduct 2 or 3 focus groups with children and young people to identify what they want out of the music provision, education, events, and opportunities in the region.
[If time] Conduct 2 focus groups or meetings with representatives from music-related organisations to understand their future aims for children and young people music provision.

Who are we looking for?

For full details of our eligibility criteria, please visit our 2024 Citizen Scientist Research Placements web page. We encourage those who meet most of the essential criteria to any extent to apply.

Essential Competencies

Experience working in music education, youth music and/or youth arts and an understanding of barriers faced by different sections of society (protected characteristics as well as geographical etc)
Knowledge of safeguarding and GDPR principles
Ability to manage and work with digital databases via cloud storage (OneDrive, SharePoint) and other computer programs (Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint). Competency in Microsoft Word
Willingness to experiment with visual presentation methods (NB: Expertise as an artist is not required).
Good time management and organisation skills.
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with an independent and proactive mindset.

Desirable Competencies

Familiarity with qualitative and quantitative data analysis software (SPSS, R, nVivo, MaxQDA, etc.)
Basic knowledge of statistics and statistical analyses
Basic familiarity with image-making software such as ProCreate or Photoshop, or similar.
Knowledge of Music Education Hubs, at least in the county, if not nationally and knowledge of the current music curriculum
Relationships and/or involvement with local/grassroots music initiatives
Awareness of the challenges faced by music organisations currently