QE became a specialist Music College in September 2004, as soon as Music was added to the national list of subjects in which it was possible to specialise. It was thus one of the first five schools in the country, and the first in London, to be awarded the designation. The School was successfully re-designated as a Music College in 2008.

Under the specialist-school programme, QE works with six partner schools, three adult ensembles and the wider community in and around Barnet. The aim of the programme is to increase the breadth of Music provision and to improve the experience of Music for as many people as possible.

This corresponds to the model set out by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).

Partner Schools

Queen Elizabeth’s School’s partners are four primary schools - Foulds, Frith Manor, St Andrew’s in Totteridge and, added in 2008, Christ Church - and two secondary schools, Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School and The Ravenscroft School.

QE provides funding for five pupils in each school to have a free half-hour instrumental lesson per week for a year. Some partner schools in fact choose to reach more pupils by giving them 15-minute lessons instead. This individual instrumental tuition (IIT) funding is the largest area of spending within our work with partner schools. It has been highly successful, providing an insight into Music to pupils whose families would not ordinarily have been able to afford such lessons or would simply not have considered them. In addition, at QE Girls’ School there is a particular success story. It has focused on girls learning brass, since the number of girls playing these instruments was very low and falling. This partner school now has a thriving brass group, which has made a number of very well received performances at school concerts.

The Partner Schools’ Concert held at QE every year in May is the single Music partnership event that reaches the highest number of pupils. Approximately 200 pupils from the partner schools come to hear QE boys demonstrate instruments and instrumental sounds. There are performances from the Big Band, String Quartet and Wind Ensemble, and from a number of soloists demonstrating instruments from the tuba to the oboe, the piano and the baritone saxophone. All Year 4 children from the primary schools are invited, together with any students whom the secondary schools wish to attend. Those chosen to receive the funded instrumental tuition are usually drawn from among these pupils, so it is hoped that the concert will inspire some to start learning an instrument, while encouraging those who have already begun to strive for greater heights.

There are a number of other regular activities. Weekly Music theory tuition is provided at Christ Church and is available for any children from the partner primary schools, although it is most appropriate for those who have reached grade II in their instrument. QE Sixth-Formers also go into the primary schools to support the delivery of Music in the classroom. Every week, nine QE boys visit several primary schools (not only the five partner schools). In some cases this is as an “extra pair of ears and hands”, helping the pupils to perform and compose; in others, the boys teach small groups how to use music technology. There are considerable benefits, not only for the primary schools but also for the QE boys: the number of Sixth-Formers requesting such placements grows every year – a clear indication of how enjoyable they find it.

QE also undertakes other activities and initiatives involving our partner schools including:

• Providing them with resources, which has ranged from purchasing computer hardware and software, to donating pianos, a drum kit, keyboards and music stands
• Regularly taking small QE ensembles to demonstrate instruments, to perform at a special occasion or , as in the case of the QE Indian Music Ensemble who played for primary-school pupils studying life in an Indian village, to support curriculum projects
• Collaborating on particular projects, notably QE’s work with the Bollywood Dancers from QE Girls’ School, but also through events such as a vocal workshop on Carmen and a Jazz evening.

Ensembles

QE supports three adult amateur ensembles: the Barnet Chamber Orchestra; Barnet Choral Society and Barnet Band. All three ensembles have a long and rich history of quality music-making in and around the Borough.

The School’s support is mainly in the form of funding: QE pays for their hire of its premises for weekly rehearsals. This support thus releases additional resources so that these ensembles can explore larger and more adventurous works. They might for example be able to afford additional rehearsal time, or hire performers as soloists or to fill in where there are gaps, or - in the case of Barnet Choral Society - hire an orchestra to accompany larger-scale works.

Technology

QE’s recording studio and technology facility runs a weekly evening Sequencing and Recording post-16 course, which is open to anyone over the age of 16 (there is no upper age limit). Participants study the techniques of creating music through MIDI input and sequencing and also live audio-recording. With these skills, they create tracks which they burn on to a CD at the end of the course, and they also create their own podcasts.

QE in the wider community

QE pupils perform regularly around the Borough. They perform carols in the Spires shopping centre in Barnet to raise funds for both Cherry Lodge Cancer Care and the North London Hospice. Other examples are performances at St Mary’s Church in Hendon for a May bank holiday festival, and for the Mayor’s Charity at the RAF Museum. The boys look forward to performing outside School are always warmly received not only for the music, but also for their politeness and attitude.

QE’s Music specialism also has a growing international dimension: when the Big Band from its German exchange school in Bielefeld came to England in June 2009, QE funded much of their transport and also paid for the joint concert at the ArtsDepot in North Finchley.

Sponsorship

The School has an ongoing relationship with the American company, Avid, and with Weave Records. Through these links, QE secured sponsorship amounting to more £11,000 in equipment and cash, which enabled it to qualify for a special DCSF grant of £25,000 that was made available when the School was re-designated as a Music College in 2008. QE has also been designated Avid’s Beacon School for the whole of Europe – an accolade which is opening up fresh opportunities for QE pupils and for the School’s Music College partners.

• Further information on Music at Queen Elizabeth’s School, including the internal aspects of its Music specialism, can be found here.