While there’s no formula for producing great music teachers, we’ve hit on the next best thing – Sing Education’s professional development scheme. We take honing our craft seriously – that’s why learning is built into onboarding, half-term training and annual development days. Between sessions, teachers collaborate through our app and resource banks.
Our teachers are essential, and absolutely the heart and face of our organization. We believe that through upskilling our teachers, by giving them the highest quality training, and by enabling them to constantly hone their craft, we will build a stronger organization, that is more influential and recognized for high quality within music education.
Training at Sing Education is multi-layered and multi-faceted.
When a teacher starts with us, they undergo initial training and onboarding, which includes training and observation in school with a senior Sing Education teacher, before they are placed into their own school. We have a yearly programme of training days at the start of the academic year, where our whole team comes together to train for the year ahead, and also to induct new members into the team. We also schedule training evenings every half term, so that everyone can receive training on the schemes of work and lessons that are coming up in the next half term, to enable our teaching to be of the highest quality.
In addition to training, you can also expect regular observation time with one of the Sing Education directors. Some of the feedback takes place in the classroom while you teach. So, you have the chance to learn on the job, through conversations between lessons. Directors may also offer real-time support by taking a little section of the lesson and showing you a technique that will with delivery. Observations are designed to encourage you to learn new things, take supported risks in the classroom and master new techniques as soon as possible.
To assist with this, observations include comprehensive feedback, both oral and written, so you can assess your own progress over time. Observations happen on a rolling timetable and the feedback includes agreed action points and tips for improving across those areas where a teacher could be doing even better. In this way we as educators are constantly honing our craft, which is one of Sing Education’s core values.
There is a second facet to your learning and development programme with Sing Education – team teaching.
The benefits of teaching as part of a team are that we have shared learning materials – so all of our teachers deliver the same teaching resources. This enables you to train alongside other music teachers, to share ideas, to have support around how to teach these teaching resources. We also do team teaching. Our teachers go in, from time to time, to watch and shadow another Sing Education teacher in their regularly assigned school. This way teachers learn practical classroom management, lesson delivery technique and educational theory directly from one another. Really there’s no better way to learn than by watching someone else teaching.
