Dear Editor
As we move into 2021 and parents, teachers and pupils once again find themselves facing additional challenges to deliver and attain a full and rounded education, it is worthwhile remembering the role that music can and should play in improving our lives.
Firstly, music will help support and sustain our young people through the coming months. For children and adults alike, the creative arts play a vital role in promoting wellbeing and positive mental health, providing both a means of expression during the isolation of “lockdown” and a practical as well as enjoyable pastime.
Secondly – and just as importantly – playing an instrument is complementary to academic subjects and has been shown emphatically to improve wider educational success. As we consider the often daunting challenge of the return to home schooling, those parents whose children can mix domestic timetables with musical lessons will understand the release and stimulation playing an instrument can deliver.
Across society music is integral to our identities and is made to be shared. We now have the means to do that successfully and safely with online tools whose use has been well-honed by recent experience.
So whether you’re at the start of a musical journey, or are well advanced in music -let’s keep singing, keep dancing and keep music lessons flowing, particularly while the restrictions necessitated by the pandemic keep us apart in our own homes.
Dr Kenneth Taylor,
Headteacher, St Mary’s Music School,
Coates Hall, 25 Grosvenor Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 5EL
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