Schools Singing Programme aims to tackle decline in engagement with music in state schools

The programme, which just finished a pilot in Armagh, plans on rolling out across the whole of NI.

A special children’s liturgy and service of celebration recently took place at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh recently. The programme, which runs in state schools across the UK, is funded by charity, the Hamish Ogston Foundation.

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Nearly 600 children from selected schools in the Archdiocese of Armagh and the Diocese of Dromore came together in the cathedral to celebrate their participation in an eight-week singing pilot which saw the children benefitting from weekly, professional, free singing tuition.

The ‘Sing A New Song’ event reflected the input of Archbishop Eamon Martin, a schools singing steering group, priests of Armagh Parish plus workers and volunteers from the parish community.

This event was made possible by the Hamish Ogston Foundation, which founded the National Schools Singing Programme in 2021 and pledged £4.135million in funding to the programme.

The programme, which engages over 20,000 children in over 200 state schools across the UK, is an ambitious music education initiative, which aims to give as many children as possible, regardless of their socio-economic background, access to the personal, social and educational benefits of deep and continuous engagement with music.

The music performed by the children in the cathedral was ambitious and prayerful, including Parish Anthem by Bernard Sexton, the more folk orientated Thy Word Is A Lamp Unto My Feet by Amy Grant/M W Smith and Taize favourites such as Jubilate Deo Servite and Veni Sancte Spiritus. The latter was taught and performed by Archbishop Eamon Martin.

Ben Saunders, Consultant for the NSSP made an address at the event: ‘Please believe me now when I say that the Schools Singing Celebration in St Patrick’s Cathedral was simply wonderful, inspiring, joyful, substantial and spectacular. What you have achieved in a couple of months is quite remarkable and the high level of ambition shown for the children in your primary schools is exactly where it should be. I was genuinely moved by the music, the hundreds of young voices and the skill with which Archbishop Eamon weaved everything together into something that was at times quite transcendent’.