Music Mentors

Our Manifesto:

Western House Academy’s Music Mentors use the values of ‘teamwork’ and ‘ambition’ and are creative in helping the younger learners become better musicians. They use platforms such as BoomBoxRadio and Google Slides to reach the whole school, as well as speaking in the Head Teacher’s Assembly on a weekly basis. The Music Mentors work collaboratively with other pupil leaders (Head Pupils and Prefects) to plan and write the scripts for the radio shows. They aim to introduce the children to a range of different musicians from different cultures and musical genres. They also create topical shows based on the school’s curriculum Project Based Learning. The whole school community can access the BoomBoxRadio shows through Google Classroom and via mixcloud both in and out of school. In the Head Teacher’s Assembly, the Music Mentors and Head Pupils create a Google Slide presentation about a musician and link this to the value of the month or theme of the month (i.e. Black History Month).

The role of mentoring younger children also forms a core part of their job as pupil leaders. This ranges from creating instructional videos for how to play musical parts to ‘live’ teaching and mentoring in their own classes and assemblies. The Music Mentors also volunteer in their play times to come in and teach the younger year groups during their music lessons. Their aim is to help younger children develop a growth mindset in learning how to play different instruments, which reinforces the school’s focus on ‘mastery’ in music.

The music mentors aim to influence the next generation of children to become more proficient musicians and have a deeper knowledge and understanding of a wide range of musical styles and genres. By being comfortable on a range of instruments themselves, they are able to model musical skills to the younger musicians, thus helping to continue the development of musicianship across this school.