All projects funded by Youth Music are required to use our outcomes approach to help plan and evaluate their activities based on the changes their work brings about. The outcomes approach provides the framework for Youth Music’s application and reporting processes, enabling us to develop a rich dataset for evaluating the impact of our investment. Youth Music funded projects set a few outcomes at the beginning of their project: these can be musical, personal or social outcomes for young people, or workforce and organisational outcomes for the sector.
Once projects come to an end, organisations funded by Youth Music report to us on their progress and present evidence showing the ways in which their project helped them to achieve their intended outcomes. In the financial year 2019-20, Youth Music received 148 final evaluation reports, which were processed and analysed by members of Youth Music’s Grants & Learning and Research & Evaluation teams. All the outcomes and quotes explored in this article are taken from these evaluation reports.
Projects are expected to use Youth Music’s quality framework, Do, Review, Improve, to plan and reflect on their practice. The framework is designed to support music-making sessions that foster personal and social, as well as musical, outcomes. It values young people’s existing musical identities and promotes a creative, young person-centred approach to learning.
For many participants of Youth Music projects, this was the first time they had ever taken part in any musical activity.
- A quarter (26%) of core participants had never made music before.
- 47% were new to the organisations delivering music activity.
The majority of evaluation reports detailed some kind of musical outcomes for young people, even if musical outcomes were not the intended ones set at application stage.
For many, this involved an improvement in a musical skill, either in specific instruments/vocal techniques, or writing, performing and music technology.
Participants had built their technical abilities when it came to playing an instrument or singing, either in one-to-one sessions or through learning in a group setting. Projects provided a wide range of information about exactly how participants’ technical abilities had improved, such as learning “chords on the keyboards, guitars and performing in assembly” (5291) to being able to “support their own tuning singing a cappella (…) in 3-part harmony” (5723).
Alongside technical instrumental and vocal skills, projects often reported an improvement in music technology skills. These included learning how to record, mix and produce music, as well as how to set up equipment for recording or performing, DJing, and many other valuable skills relating to the use of specialist equipment and software:
Projects such as the one quoted above often work with young people with little to no formal music education. In many cases, the use of technology in music making projects can be an effective way of engaging young people quickly, as progress in skills and knowledge can be observed relatively quickly, giving newcomers to music making a sense of mastery in a short space of time.
Using technology to make music has been more beneficial than ever this year for many young people who have been unable to make music in their usual ways due to COVID-19 and social distancing restrictions. Youth Music grantholders can now access VIP studios for free, meaning that young people on their projects with an internet connection can access the cloud-based music production software at home. Feedback from current grantholders has shown this partnership to be a beneficial one:
Performance and expression
Development in musical understanding – reported by many projects – can lead to improved skills in performing and expressing it to others, and many projects saw an improvement in participants’ musical performance skills. This was sometimes in the form of performing a song or piece of music expressively:
For others, this was about building the belief in their skills to feel comfortable and confident performing to others, and this was often evidenced by positive feedback from audiences made up of other young musicians, music leaders, parents, and members of the wider community:
The aforementioned understanding and appreciation of how music works can also lead to better-informed songwriting and composition, and many projects reported an increase in this type of skill among participants:
Musical understanding and communication
Alongside projects reporting concrete skills in songwriting and composition, there were also improvements shown in the ability to communicate through music. This was sometimes still linked with songwriting, with participants demonstrating their increased musical skills and confidence through the music and lyrics they were writing:
- 100% expressed improvement in their lyric writing, performance as a result of their studio sessions. (5305)
For participants in other projects, communicating their own personal experiences through original music and lyrics appeared to be a valuable skill and experience, and this also sometimes helped them to reflect on the way they listen to other music:
On a similar note, many reports discussed the idea of participants’ self-expression being improved. This is particularly important when working with young musicians facing barriers to music making. Many of the young people our funded organisations work with experience situations and circumstances that have a huge impact on their lives, and often it can be difficult to find the right way to express or communicate their feelings. Writing and performing original music offers a different way to express these difficult feelings. Youth Music is currently in the process of researching the idea of self-expression through music and lyric writing further, as it is a topic widely covered in evaluation reports and is thought to improve participants’ emotional wellbeing:
The idea of expressing yourself through music can often be linked with communicating particular thoughts or feelings with others, and this appears to be the case for many participants. However there were also themes in evaluation reports about the other ways participants communicate musically. When playing together in a band or ensemble, musicians often use non-verbal cues to communicate with their fellow musicians. Participants’ non-verbal communication through music improved in several projects, with reports noting how participants listened to each other, kept time, and sang/played with a sense of togetherness.
Another frequently occurring theme on the subject of musical understanding was the idea of participants’ improvisation skills improving as the projects progressed, often leading to skills in playing and writing non-improvised music as well. Young musicians’ spontaneous musical contributions became noticeably more sophisticated over time, suggesting an improved understanding of different ways to play and sing music:
Alongside the technical and communicative understanding of music shown above, young people (and often, parents of very young children) demonstrated an understanding of the ways in which music can contribute to their life outside the immediate environment of the project they took part in.
There were several mentions of young people being made aware of the variety of different musical opportunities available to them, and for some, this seemed to show the beginnings of shaping musical identities as listeners/audience members as well as performers:
In many projects, participants were not only made aware of musical genres that had been previously unknown to them, but were able to experience their own and each other’s musical cultures in new settings:
For other projects, participants were made more aware of the many different musical careers and further education pathways available to them such as “promoting and organising events, [and] producing videos” (5302) taking music at GCSE (6358) or going to college to learn about music (5723). There was also a sense that some projects gave participants a sense of the realities of working in the music industry:
Finally, several projects (particularly those working with Disabled young people and early years) highlighted how participation had broadened the awareness of music’s impact among parents and carers, often resulting in increased confidence in using music and singing at home, outside of the project environment:
Many of the projects have accreditation offers available for the young people they work with: this is usually approached in a way that is responsive to the progression needs of each individual.
Some projects mentioned that accreditation could be offputting to participants. For example, in one project where participants were referred “mainly due to their lack of focus, concentration and achievement in class” the sessions offered “a place for them to feel that they could achieve something without the barrier of accreditation frameworks” (6618). In another project, young people were seen to be “wary of the term accreditation”. Particularly for those “failing at, or not attending school”, the words “grade/exam [have] in the past acted as a barrier” (6440).
Likewise, for projects working with young people experiencing mental health problems and low self-esteem, accreditation was not always a priority when working with young people “frequently arriving in crisis” (5948). However, many projects were able to overcome these barriers through flexibility, creativity and long-term engagement.
Overall, 8% of core participants (n=3,448) received some sort of accreditation through the programme they attended. The proportion receiving accreditation has decreased from 14% in 2018/19, which is most likely due to variation in the projects reported on in this period. 63% of the accreditations (n=2,157) were Arts Awards:
- 1,158 Arts Award Discover
- 259 Arts Award Explore
- 630 Bronze Arts Award
- 67 Silver Arts Award
- 43 Gold Arts Award
Projects reported on a wide variety of personal outcomes for the young people they worked with. These encompassed many intrinsic personal outcomes that influence young people’s overall wellbeing (such as confidence, self-esteem and general life satisfaction) as well as extrinsic developments (such as engaging or re-engaging with education or employment, and learning transferable skills).
One of the most commonly-reported personal outcomes for young people was confidence. For many, this was aided by the creative and performance aspects of the projects, leading to a stronger sense of self, and confidence in themselves, which transpired in other areas of their lives too:
For some, self-confidence went a step further: young people said they “felt proud” (6360) or experienced “increased self-worth” (5883), which often came from “feeling useful” (5739) or as if their roles in the project had given them a sense of purpose. This in turn was seen to be “linked to increased motivation and determination around the pursuit of their goals” (5943).
Alongside these deep personal changes to self-esteem, self-worth, purpose and confidence, there was also a huge amount of evidence to suggest that participation in Youth Music projects lead to increased happiness and life satisfaction. Intrinsic personal outcomes such as these are important products of Youth Music funded work at any time. However, in these circumstances, when the mental health and wellbeing of younger people is at a low due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the benefits of music-making are needed now more than ever:
This sometimes was particularly evident in projects doing targeted work with young people at risk of experiencing mental health difficulties:
While increased happiness and improved mental health could be attributed to any combination of the types of personal outcomes evidenced above, we should not downplay that one main benefit of taking part in music-making for young people is about simply enjoying themselves and having fun, and is often a good distraction from the other things going on in their lives:
There were many commonly-reported extrinsic personal outcomes relating to skills not directly related to music, as well as engaging (or re-engaging) with education, employment and training. Many young people developed transferable skills as a result of participating in a Youth Music project. These included (but were not limited to) leadership, event management and facilitation skills:
Other skills built included literacy and numeracy skills, in particular how increased literacy and language skills assisted young people with their communication (6192, 6851). For some young people, participation in a Youth Music project helped them to think about (and in some cases pursue) the different careers available to them. These didn’t always necessarily involve music:
Reports contained a variety of different activities that participants were signposted towards. While many of these were musical activities, others (including those specifically designed to target particular groups of young people) focused on education or employment, with a small number of projects also reporting young people being signposted to other types of art/creativity/leisure, or accessing external services.
The majority of reports focused on how young people had been signposted towards new musical opportunities following the end of the project. Some talked about how participants had progressed on to individual/one-to-one music sessions, however far more commonly, reports discussed participants progressing on to other types of group music making. These were sometimes offered by partner organisations. Other organisations offered multiple projects, allowing participants to progress internally.
Several projects also reported young musicians progressing to making more music in local music scenes. Some talked about how they had enabled young musicians to explore performance opportunities in the area, either as part of their project, or beyond:
Education, employment and training
For many projects working with young people aged 16 and above, progression to employment, education or training was a positive outcome. In 2019/20, in projects where the majority of participants were aged 16 and above, an estimated 23% of participants engaged/re-engaged with employment, education or training as a result of the project.
While many reports focused on describing musical progression, several also discussed progression to other kinds of activity. Mentions of continuing music/arts education in formal institutions such as colleges and universities were frequent:
Several other reports discussed the various employment opportunities participants had progressed to. For some, these were directly related to music:
Other employment opportunities mentioned were not music-related, or were not specified:
Alongside employment or work experience with specific organisations, there was also mention of training opportunities offered through the project which would put participants in good stead for accessing external employment opportunities in the future:
There were many instances of how participation in a Youth Music project led to engaging or re-engaging with school, college, and further training:
"We can confirm that 6 students from [project] are now in further training with us" - Halton College. (6481)
The inherently social nature of music-making can lead to a number of social outcomes including feelings of belonging, bonding with like-minded people and making/sustaining friendships, as well as more measurable outcomes such as speech and language development, engagement with the community and external services, and improving behavioural issues.
Many projects reported seeing their participants interacting with one another using music. This was particularly evident (but not exclusively) in projects with parents and babies/toddlers where it was seen to be “a great bonding experience with our own children too, practicing the songs together at home […] with the whole family joining in too” (5913). There were also many reports of participants forming friendships with other members of the group, finding common ground with people they may not have otherwise met. This often led to a stronger sense of belonging, which is particularly important when thinking about the barriers that many participants of Youth Music funded projects face:
Music was described as helping to overcome barriers between people:
There were also many instances of participants learning and developing confidence to use interpersonal and social skills, sometimes explicitly facilitated by the process of making music together:
Several projects talked about the ways in which their projects had helped participants with the development of their speech and language. This is often seen in early years projects looking at speech and language development in infants, but there were also instances of projects working with older participants, for whom English was an additional language:
There were also instances of significant improvement throughout the course of a project with those who had antisocial behavioural issues or difficulty integrating into groups:
As well as change on an individual level, there are many ways in which social changes can happen on a group scale as a result of music-making. We have seen several projects reporting outcomes happening on a communal/community level as well.
Several reports talked about how a community of musicians and young people has been created within the project. Often this revolved around spending time together as a group outside of the direct music element to a project. Other times, this was due to the interactive and communicative element of music making it easier to bond people together:
Communities could be built for everyone involved in a project: for example, this hospital project created a community not only with patients and music leaders, but also with hospital staff.
There were many instances of young musicians engaging with their external communities. Much of the time this involved performing to members of the general public, often leading to positive feedback from audience members and in some cases, challenging communities’ negative stereotypes of young people:
Alongside the wide variety of outcomes for children and young people taking part in Youth Music funded projects, there were also many outcomes reported for the workforce supporting them. Youth Music projects often contain an element of continuing professional development (CPD) for the workforce. Particularly in larger, more strategic grants, this is high on the list of priorities and can be hugely beneficial - not only for individual staff members, but for the organisations seeking to embed musically inclusive practice.
Organisations submitting evaluation reports in 2019/20 reported that over the course of their programmes of work:
- 4,430 people were involved in delivering music making activities at projects funded by Youth Music.
- 3,583 people accessed continual professional development (CPD) opportunities as a result of Youth Music investment.
- There was a notable increase in the proportion of setting staff involved in delivering music-making activities from 26% in 2018/19, to 41% in 2019/20.
Commonly-reported themes were that the workforce supporting the participants on the Youth Music projects were learning and developing knowledge and skills, and/or becoming more confident in their roles as a result of being able to share ideas with peers. Often, this was as a result of attending specific training or practice-sharing events developed by the reporting project, or an external partner.
In order to ensure supportive and inclusive environments for young people facing barriers to music-making, many Youth Music funded organisations operate their projects in partnership with different agencies (e.g. specialist settings such as Pupil Referral Units) or through employing specialist staff members on the project (e.g. youth support workers providing pastoral support alongside the musical development). This means that there were many reports of workforce members from different disciplines sharing practice and gaining knowledge about working in different ways as a result of working together on the projects. There were reports of musicians and music leaders learning more about specific ways of working with different target groups, or having to think in a more inclusive way than they were used to:
There were also instances of non-music specialist staff in partner/referral settings (such as schools, nurseries, youth centres and hospitals) learning how to incorporate music into their work when music specialists were not around:
In terms of supporting future generations of the workforce, there were many reports of mentoring and trainee programmes, often involving older or ex-participants of a particular project who aspired to progress and become music leaders themselves:
Workforce motivation and satisfaction
Alongside the skills and knowledge developed, there were also several themes relating to the workforce’s motivation and job satisfaction.
For many, this was a result of having a supportive and safe working and training environment, with a judgement-free opportunity to air concerns, ask questions and learn new things. There were also several instances of workforce members reporting increased confidence in their roles as musicians:
Finally, specific to music projects taking place in hospitals, there were a few reports that having music on the wards is cheering for hospital staff, for whom long, tiring and stressful days are often the norm, but also that it can be helpful for them when trying to calm patients down or distract them during a procedure, suggesting it can make hospital staff’s jobs easier at times:
As well as benefits for members of the workforce on an individual level, Youth Music projects reported on a number of outcomes for their wider organisation, and the music education sector as a whole. Youth Music’s vision is for a musically inclusive England, and there were several ways in which organisations were using Youth Music funding to gain more knowledge on topics around inclusion, partner with each other in order to share this knowledge and to develop progression pathways for young people, and to fully embed this learning into their daily practices.
Many organisations discussed developing tools and resources on particular topics and sharing these with others, or in one case, creating and hosting an online network for practitioners. Others described how they had developed responsive and user-centred training for members of their own and other organisations’ workforce:
We hadn’t expected to attract such specialised music leaders with training skills – it was really successful working with them to develop the CPD programme, and to incorporate their skills into delivering 5 of the sessions. It has helped to establish our local network of practitioners and to showcase the pool of local talent to partners and providers. Our practitioners have also created a diverse set of resources. (6155)
Reflecting on our desire to offer a Level 1 Music qualification, we realised that the process by which practitioners develop their skills is typically much more organic than completing a specific course. Just as we have learned to validate ‘non-musical’ music making, we’ve also learned that musical development is an amorphous and individual process. Our experience from this project has led us to a realisation that music will not happen of its own accord; rather it needs to be constantly supported and led by interested individuals. Since the motivation is there to retain a focus on musicality and not lose it, there is a clear need to materially support this focus in the future. If we were to set out on this project now, we would redefine this goal as becoming a centre of musical ‘abundance’ rather than ‘excellence’. (6180)
Many organisations discussed how they shared their expertise, resources, and learning through presentations at All-Party Parliamentary Groups, conferences and events, and likewise learnt new things through speaking to and hearing from other organisations in the sector.
Developing resources and attending training, as well as sharing the learning from successful projects at national conferences, appears to have established a level of experience and expertise amongst a number of organisations. Several organisations reported using their reputation as musical inclusion experts to work with and influence other providers – including Music Education Hubs and local authorities – to think and work more inclusively. Aside from being able to influence external organisations to embed musically inclusive practice, organisations also reported on the other benefits to networking with partners. Several reports mentioned that networking with partner organisations had increased and improved musical progression routes for young people.
This article has explored some of the main themes coming out of Youth Music’s funded work and is just a small selection of quotes from reports submitted by grantholders this year. Evaluation reports submitted to Youth Music have demonstrated just how impactful the work is to young musicians and the workforce and organisations supporting them. Although young people and the music education sector have faced unprecedented challenges in 2020, music continues to be a powerful resource for many. Thank you to all the projects whose final evaluation reports are featured here, and to all the others in our portfolio.