Many class teachers have very little musical training, so their limited confidence can be a stumbling block; this inevitably affects their ability to identify young people’s musical potential in their classes.

So AYM brought together a number of partners to help tackle this and develop a training programme.

Musical opportunities in many schools can be limited, even at the earliest stage of involvement in music-making; that’s why we not only train teachers to spot musical potential – we also explore with them how to nurture and support it, once they’ve done so.

Identifying Talent has two strands: face-to-face training and a series of online film resources. These films highlight key facets of musical potential: we use creative musical activities to help teachers identify potential in young people, in a wide range of formal and informal educational contexts.

We’re also working with Youth Music to create a “Train the Trainers” strand, engaging with a larger group of teachers to deliver this programme. This will increase our capacity and help to expand the programme’s reach. In addition we share the programme’s key principles via our Practical Progression films and training.

The programme has now been externally evaluated twice; this has enabled us to continue to develop its content and impact.

For more information about how we developed this programme click here.