The Times: Power of violin helps transform problem school

An inner-city secondary school that transformed behaviour and results after giving every new student a violin and three years of music lessons could have its success replicated across the country.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Nicola Benedetti are patrons of the scheme, which is being taken beyond London for the first time and eventually aims to reach every school in England.

Jenny Smith, head of Frederick Bremer School in Walthamstow, east London, which has run the scheme for five years, said: “The school is unrecognisable from where it was in 2014. We are celebrating the best results the school has ever had. Music is thriving and it is infectious. Music is absolutely at the heart of the school, and not an add-on.”

Truda White, a head teacher who founded the Music in Secondary Schools Trust to help turn around her struggling school, said that producing top-class musicians was not the main goal. Children learnt to co-operate, concentrate, sit still and cherished their instruments so much that if a fight broke out in the playground they would carefully put them down first before joining in, she said.

Ms White was in charge of a challenging school in Islington, north London, for 12 years. She secured funding from a charity to introduce classical music lessons to pupils “equal to the best in the country”. The school’s Ofsted rating was raised outstanding under her watch.

The full online article can be found here.