Services For Education’s Deputy Head of Music Service, Head of Ensembles and Designated Safeguarding Lead, Charlotte Buxton, reveals what to expect from this year’s highly anticipated Youth Proms event. Following the success of 2023, the Youth Proms returns between the 8th to the 11th of July 2024. Over the course of four unforgettable nights, Services For Education (SFE) will proudly showcase the extraordinary musical talents of over 4,500 young musicians from across Birmingham. This event, hosted by the esteemed celebrity compere Michael Collie, promises to be a grand celebration of youth, t ..read more

The festive season has once again arrived and we’re reaching that wonderful time of year where we can review, reflect and celebrate our successes. At Services For Education, we’ve had another pretty busy one! Every year, we bring music to 31,000 children a week, working with over 380 schools and loaning instruments to 27,000 young children in the Midlands. We do this in a variety of ways, including our teaching in schools, the SFE ensemble system, music school and charitable projects. But we also improve music teaching across the region, through our Music CPD and consultancy work for schools ..read more

Helen Brookes provides a vital overview of the main points and thoughts of Ofsted’s music subject report to ensure your school adapts for the 2023/24 academic year.    On 21st September 2023, the music subject report was released. It contains the main findings of HMI and Ofsted inspectors from visits made between December 2022 and June 2023. This new report follows the three music subject reports published between 2012 and 2013: Music in schools: wider still, and wider (2012) Music in schools: sound partnerships (2012) Music in schools: what hubs must do (2013) The inspector v ..read more

Discover why music education in schools is important under the National Plan for Music Education, with benefits and actions your school can take this year. Whether for wellbeing, community, creativity or profession, the significance of music in our society needs no explanation. Music is a vital subject in the curriculum, and with the refreshed National Plan for Music Education (NPME) putting a bigger emphasis on the importance of broader music education, schools in England must make the necessary adjustments to deliver high-quality lessons. In this piece, we discuss this new 85-page document a ..read more

SFE is pleased to share this original song, Come Together Everybody, inspired by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s messages to the Commonwealth nations and territories at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. Come Together Everybody is a song that celebrates hope in diversity and draws on themes of family, friendship and togetherness. The Lunar Society has funded arranger, Bob Vivian, to produce instrumental scores for all abilities so that musicians and singers across the world can enjoy performing the song. We’d love you to use the resources available here and to record and share your ..read more

SFE Brass are pleased to introduce this exciting series focusing on developing improvisation and jazz techniques. Whether you are a beginner or more advanced brass player, these videos and accompanying resources will be a great aid to exploring this exciting genre of music. In each video below, James will lead you through the piece, talk you through stylistic approaches and tricks of the trade, and help you develop your confidence and ability in improvisation. You can play along using the appropriate PDF for your instrument below. You can also download the backing tracks to help you work on wh ..read more

SFE Brass are pleased to introduce this exciting series of warmups to help support your development in lessons and at home. Each routine includes everything you need to be fully ready for a constructive practice session and you get to play along with our amazing team of brass teachers using music put together by them. If you are a treble clef Bb reader, then you can play along with the notation on screen. All other instruments just click on the appropriate PDF links below the videos. We hope you enjoy these resources and, if you would like to, why not tweet, or post about your experience using ..read more

SFE Brass are pleased to introduce this exciting series of interviews with stars from across the brass world. In each video, Matthew asks our guests questions based on their musical development and career which will hopefully inspire and give food for thought to any up-and-coming player. You can watch the full interviews or look through our question focused playlists if there is a particular area that you are interested in. We hope you enjoy these resources and, if you would like to, why not tweet, or post a comment about what you enjoyed watching using #sfebrass? The Full Interviews Richard M ..read more

In normal times, our team of 250 people would have been teaching music to 38,000 Birmingham schoolchildren or delivering training to teachers, support staff and governors in schools and at our conference facilities in Aston – helping 570 Birmingham schools to meet national targets. This though was a pandemic. These were not normal times. But the show had to go on, as Tracy Carlton, Director of Marketing and Business Development at Services For Education, reveals. The pandemic and lockdowns could have dealt a devastating blow to Services For Education. We are an organisation that thrives on per ..read more

“Beautiful tone, beautiful heart.” So said Sinichi Suzuki and we agree that finding and enjoying your own best sound is SO important-and no longer a mystery! Come and explore the String Department’s unique collection of new staff recordings. Each one is designed to give you ideas and strategies from our diverse perspectives and experiences as players and teachers and we then challenge you to give us feedback, ask more questions-perhaps specific to your repertoire-so that we can build your confident sound together. Scroll to the bottom of this page to use our anonymous feedback form. The projec ..read more