A NEW report has found that Scotland's Big Noise orchestras have the potential to "transform children's lives" with its "outstanding" teaching of orchestral instruments to children.
Sistema Scotland, the charity which runs Big Noise orchestras, has had its work in Stirling, Glasgow, and Aberdeen reviewed by Education Scotland.
Education Scotland assessed three Big Noise Centres in Raploch, Stirling; Govanhill, Glasgow; and Torry, Aberdeen in April 2017.
The report found that the orchestras, based on the Venezuelan model of El Sistema, is "helping to build trust and increase self-esteem, confidence, concentration, a resilient mind-set and working as a team."
It adds: "Big Noise is helping to improve the life chances of children living in areas of multiple deprivation through the provision of free music tuition on a scale that would not normally be affordable to most families. Staff help children and families overcome barriers to participation."
The orchestras work with around 2,500 children: in Raploch, Stirling, Govanhill in Glasgow, Torry in Aberdeen and Douglas in Dundee.
Nicola Killean, Chief Executive of Sistema Scotland, said: “I am delighted that the Education Scotland report has recognised our key strengths and highlighted the commitment and quality of the staff team and the child-centred approach.
"Big Noise is about using music as a tool to engage with children and young people and it’s the quality of people we recruit and train, and the relationship they build with the children, families and communities that allows us to have maximum impact.
“I welcome that this substantive report from Education Scotland reinforces the impacts and outcomes that previously were reported in independent evaluation by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH), which found improvements in children’s confidence, self-esteem, concentration, communications and co-operation."
The report suggests that Big Noise improve its tracking and monitoring of progress.
Councillor Scott Farmer, leader of Stirling Council said: “The Raploch community should be justifiably proud of its achievements over the last 10 years working with Sistema Scotland.
"The Council will use the invaluable learning from the evaluation as it works with Sistema Scotland and the community going forward."
Councillor Susan Aitken, leader of Glasgow City Council and Councillor John Wheeler, Aberdeen City Council’s Education and Children’s Services Convener, also welcomed the report.
The Big Noise centre in Douglas, Dundee is not included in the Education Scotland report as it opened in September 2017, after the Education Scotland review was carried out.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel