Our projects

As well as the services we offer to schools, parents and young people, we also run a number of projects to provide opportunities for music-making across the county.

Music Mushrooms

We don't just work in schools: through our Musical Mushrooms project, pre-school children across the county are now experiencing more, and better quality music-making in their playgroups, nurseries, child-minders and children's centres. The programme, which has been running since 2004, provides training, development and mentoring in music teaching for people working in early years settings, in partnership with the County Council's Early Years team, and funded by Sure Start and Youth Music. This has included: a DVD distributed free to all early years settings; a coaching and mentoring programme in Children's Centres using designated outreachworkers to establish support networks, evaluation and support from leading experts in the field and support for family learning.

County Vocal Strategy - and Sing Up

We've been working in primary schools throughout the county since 2000 to develop singing activities in schools. Our work has included support for teachers in the classroom to raise the standard and quality of singing (including through our Wider Opportunities scheme); support and training for music co-ordinators and specialists to develop choirs in schools; organising regular singing events and one-off projects.

Since 2009, we have supported the Sing Up national singing campaign as part of the Swindon, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire (SWAG) consortium of music services. Many training events have been put on in the region for teachers and music leaders. For more information contact the Sing Up Area Leader Liz Terry (SWAG@singup.org).