Planning your program

Succession planning

When parents talk about music learning programs for their children a common lament can be heard: the school had a fantastic music program until a particular teacher left.

If the program at your school is only as strong as the most committed or passionate teacher, then the program is vulnerable.

 

As your school builds its program, or begins to grow and strengthen it, some cornerstone actions and habits that will help ensure the longevity of the program can be instigated. Even if you only undertake a few of the following actions, it will help to future-proof your music learning program against budget changes, changes in school leadership and unexpected staffing unavailability. All these need to be considered in relation to a manageable workload.

• Find a co-leader. There should be at least two people who ‘get’ the program, are passionate about it, know how it works and have had some experience in leading.
• Write your music learning program into your school’s vision and mission statement.
• Develop a five-year music learning program plan, and renew the five-year plan at least a year before it runs out.
• One way to do this is to meet regularly with and involve the school leadership team in the program.
• Set measurable, pragmatic goals for your music learning program, and evaluate against them each year. Goals could include a high student satisfaction rating (your evaluation plan would include a survey method), an increase in the number of school enrolments, ongoing partnerships with the local community, and, of course, student progression in music learning measured against the curriculum.

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