Established in 2015, the National Music Teacher Mentoring Program is built on the foundational belief that every child should have the opportunity to learn, participate in, and express themselves through music. This is made possible by improving access to high quality music teaching and learning, through teacher mentoring.
The Issue
- Increasingly classroom teachers are not trained sufficiently to have the skills and confidence to teach classroom music.
- Whilst some Australian primary schools have specialist music teachers, many are reliant on classroom teachers to deliver this specialised curriculum area.
- In 2005, the National Review of School Music Education identified that many Australian students miss out on effective music education because of the lack of equity of access, lack of quality of provision, and the poor status of music in many schools. Key recommendations of the Review included to improve teacher pre-service and in-service education, and to improve music education in schools through adequately educated specialist teachers.
- The current level of pre-service training for classroom teachers remains a concern, with new research expected for release soon. With very limited training for teachers, music continues to disappear from primary school classrooms, where it has the greatest developmental impacts.
The Solution
This program was established to address this gap.
Focusing on the early years of schooling, the NMTMP pairs two experienced professionals with differing areas of expertise (generalist classroom teaching and specialist music teaching) building the generalist teacher’s skills and confidence in music teaching.
The quality of music education is improved through the mentoring of generalist classroom teachers by experienced music educators.
