Established in 2015, the National Music Teacher Mentoring Program – now known as Music in Me – 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 WHY

• Increasingly classroom teachers are not trained sufficiently to have the skills and confidence to teach classroom music.
  
• Whilst some Australian primary schools have specialist trained music teachers, many are reliant on classroom teachers to deliver this specialised curriculum area.
  
• Recent Australian research by the Alberts Tony Foundation reveals that music training in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in primary education continues to decline, meaning that overall, graduating teachers are no longer equipped to deliver quality music education in primary school classrooms, where it has the greatest developmental impact.
  
• Most graduating generalist primary school teachers now lack the confidence and competency to teach music effectively – according to the Alberts report, the average time dedicated to music education training time in ITE over a 4-year degree has reduced 53% since the previous report in 2009, nationally just 8 hours in total.
  
• Furthermore, 71% of universities surveyed now say their students do not expect to teach music in the classroom, and it also states that children from disadvantaged schools are far less likely to receive music education delivered by trained music teachers, or have access to instruments, quality resources and experiences.

The Solution

This program was established to address this gap.

Music in Me (formerly the National Music Teacher Mentoring Program) presents a simple solution to this problem: pairing expert mentors with teachers across the country, building confidence and competence. Our research demonstrates how Music in Me directly addresses the issues raised in the Alberts’ report.

Focussing on the primary years of schooling, the program pairs two experienced professionals with differing areas of expertise (generalist classroom or new music specialist teacher and specialist music teacher) in a common enterprise of building the mentored teacher’s skills and confidence in delivering quality music education.