Leicestershire Music
Music Educators' Conference 2025

In the keynote, Jayne will explore the 'why?' behind the work to develop a more equitable music curriculum.

Drawing on her research, she will identify some entrenched practices that may present barriers for minoritised pupils' engagement and participation in the formal and informal music curriculum. She will outline some of the conflicting advice that has influenced how music teachers conceive and operationalise content and pedagogy in response to cultural diversity, and suggest some ways in which we can move towards more culturally responsive teaching and learning in music classrooms.

Designed for educators with experience in DAWs, this advanced workshop delves into the creative possibilities of genre fusion using BandLab. Participants will explore innovative ways to blend genres like hip-hop, electronic, and rock, leveraging BandLab's extensive suite of production tools. Through hands-on sessions, teachers will refine their skills in integrating loops, samples, and effects to craft sophisticated hybrid sounds that push genre boundaries.

The workshop will cover advanced techniques for balancing contrasting styles, enhancing cross-genre collaboration, and guiding students through the process of genre experimentation. With a focus on practical applications for the classroom, attendees will leave with fresh strategies to inspire their students and elevate their own creative projects. This is a perfect opportunity to expand your toolkit and take your music production lessons to the next level.

In this interactive workshop, participants will explore the art of blending genres to create unique, hybrid sounds using BandLab's powerful digital tools. From mixing hip-hop with electronic beats to fusing R&B with indie rock or jazz, this session will guide attendees through the process of genre-mixing to push musical boundaries. With hands-on activities, participants will experiment with loops, samples, and effects to craft tracks that seamlessly combine different musical styles. Learn how to balance contrasting elements, adapt techniques from multiple genres, and collaborate with other creators. This workshop will provide you with the practical skills and creative mindset needed to innovate across genres. No prior experience is needed—just bring your passion for music!

Join us for a live workshop showcasing how CMPSR and Arrownotes, together with Digit Learning's Global Sound Culture (GSC) classroom resource, promote inclusivity in education. Discover GSC Kenya, featuring authentic sounds and instruments from East Africa, such as the Nyatiti and Adungu, recorded at Supersonic Africa Studios in Nairobi.

We will demonstrate how CMPSR's joystick controller and Arrownotes' visual music notation empower students to explore, play, and compose music from around the world. By breaking down traditional barriers, CMPSR and Arrownotes make music accessible to all students, opening a world of composition, creation and performance.

Ideal for educators in a range of settings, we will offer practical insights into fostering creativity and collaboration in the classroom. Learn how to create an inclusive music environment where every student, regardless of ability, can express themselves and enjoy the transformative power of music-making using sounds from around the world.

Delegates will get an insight to the background of the Tabla and how it has become the most popular South Asian percussion instrument today. You will have a chance to learn the abstract language of this instrument and have an opportunity to play some basic rhythmic patterns on the Tabla.

Join us for a live workshop showcasing how CMPSR and Arrownotes, together with Digit Learning's Global Sound Culture (GSC) classroom resource, promote inclusivity in education. Discover GSC Kenya, featuring authentic sounds and instruments from East Africa, such as the Nyatiti and Adungu, recorded at Supersonic Africa Studios in Nairobi.

We will demonstrate how CMPSR's joystick controller and Arrownotes' visual music notation empower students to explore, play, and compose music from around the world. By breaking down traditional barriers, CMPSR and Arrownotes make music accessible to all students, opening a world of composition, creation and performance.

Ideal for educators in a range of settings, we will offer practical insights into fostering creativity and collaboration in the classroom. Learn how to create an inclusive music environment where every student, regardless of ability, can express themselves and enjoy the transformative power of music-making using sounds from around the world.

In this workshop, we'll discuss and reflect on current practice in your own setting and explore some ways to further adapt and diversify the music curriculum drawing on your learning from the workshops during the day. We'll root the discussion in sound curriculum development principles, where logic, sequencing and conscious crafting of the curriculum ensures that the content connects meaningfully together, and we'll focus on identifying practical strategies to help you to take this work further forward afterwards.

Meme's are a way of transferring a recognisable 'thing' and adapting it so that it has a whole new meaning.

This session will be a chance to think about new ways of implementing musical ideas from the practical sessions in the conference into fusion-based composition briefs. A seminar-style session that will explore micro musical ideas and macro musical ideas to support student's fears around composing and what teachers can and cannot do when supporting GCSE students when composing. Delegates will leave the session with numerous new compositional tactics and approaches to take back to their classes.

For those delivering the instrumental practical workshops please think about the cultural background of the instrument and genre as well as traditional musical examples.

An interactive workshop designed to demystify the vast array of musical genres and subgenres of the 21st century, with a special focus on hip-hop and its evolving styles. Through hands-on activities and listening sessions, participants will dive into the beats, rhythms, and cultural roots of genres like trap, drill, and lo-fi hip-hop, while also exploring how these styles intersect with pop, electronic, and global sounds.

You'll gain insight into how genres blend, adapt, and influence modern music production, and discover techniques for recognizing and creating distinct musical styles. Whatever your musical background, this workshop will empower you to navigate the ever-expanding world of contemporary music with confidence. Perfect for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of the soundscapes shaping today's music scene!

In this workshop teachers will learn

• Short history of the Dhol drum and its back ground
• Correct way to hold the beaters used on the Dhol
• Correct way to strike both sides of the Dhol to get the right tone from either side
• The correct phrase – name - syllables for each strike and beat structure
• Simple & easy to learn Bhangra beats and the names of each rhythm.
• Some vocal shouts used in Bhangra Music
• Some paired work / ensemble depending on duration of lesson
• Demonstrations of other Bhangra Folk instruments – woodwind – stringed – handheld percussion
• (Basic Bhangra Dance steps)

At Crown Hills we passionately believe that a child's background should not impact on their life chances, and we make it our job to ensure that all the barriers to success are removed. Crown Hills students are from a wide variety of diverse cultural and religious communities, speaking a total of 43 different languages.

Crown Hills is committed to providing a high-quality music education for all students. I will speak about the rationale for, and the practical outworking of, our music curriculum ensuring every child feels that their own cultural music is valued in the classroom.

This workshop will explore the history of gospel music, its African origins, spirituals, notable figures, Thomas Dorsey, Edwin Hawkins, Kirk Franklin, its influences on contemporary music, its association with the civil rights movement, traditional, contemporary gospel sounds and styles.
Using popular songs we will demonstrate and teach Gospel singing techniques 'call and response', syncopation, improvisation, movement and feeling and discuss its continued cultural contributions and significance.

Inspire-Works are the current Guinness World Record holders for the World's Largest Samba Band! Brazilian samba drumming is increasingly becoming popular in the classroom due to the infectious grooves and simplicity of layering of rhythms, making it accessible for all ages of classes. However, leading a samba session can leave teachers feeling quite overwhelmed!

Using Inspire-works' model of workshop facilitating as a starting point, participants will have the opportunity to:

Learn & develop:

• new samba facilitation skills for whole-class teaching
• the roles of the instruments within one of Rio's Escola de Samba and what classroom percussion instruments are suitable substitutions
• how to use differentiation in a whole-class environment with different age groups
• techniques for teaching samba in the classroom

an understanding of appropriate samba music and pedagogy for different age groups.

Inspire-works' Co-Founder, Mike Simpson, will be leading this fun and interactive session using an authentic Balinese gamelan, Ghanaian djembes and dununs and Brazilian samba instruments. Drawing on his 23-years of experience leading global arts workshops in schools, he will demonstrate how these styles can be taught in the classroom with or without authentic instruments.