SE Music Conference 2022

Welcome from Music Teachers’ Association It gives me great pleasure to welcome you here to our first in-person Music Teachers’ Association conference in three years. I am proud of the way in which the MTA has stepped up during the pandemic, moving our support for colleagues into the online world and ensuring that we responded to the needs of our members; nevertheless, I am delighted to be able to see you in person this weekend, rather than in little squares on a screen. If you are new to our conferences, please do make yourself known to members of the committee so we can introduce you to others from your area. With our most ambitious programme yet, we hope that this will be a stimulating few days, meeting other music educators and sharing ideas and best practice. The conference has sessions exploring aspects of the full learning journey from early years to university. From big-picture panel discussions where leading experts consider the dominant issues in music education, to workshops with specialist teachers on important topics such as SEND, curriculum tuning, and music technology, we hope that there is something for everyone. Building on the success of professional coaching sessions with Marion Friend in previous years, we are very pleased to be able to offer teaching and learning coaching with Liz Dunbar and James Manwaring this year, too. Alongside our breakout sessions, a wide range of corporate members are exhibiting their products and services in our trade fair; lots of time has been built into the programme to ensure that you can make the most of this, giving you a chance to speak to all the exhibitors.

I am hugely grateful to Alex Tester and the whole team at St Edward’s for the time they have taken to organise the conference, and to the Warden, Alastair Chirnside for hosting us. We are also very grateful for all the work of our committee, and employees, Sophie, Keith and Gill; this is Gill’s first year in her role as Conference and Events Manager and the ideas and expertise which she has

brought to the team have been instrumental in devising many new initiatives this year.

Don Gillthorpe, MTA President

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