The Story Behind the Amnesty... Finding the Schools
Hundreds of schools answered James Rhodes’ callout for instrument amnesty participants. Here’s how it all began…
Back in July, an email went out to schools in the UK asking: do you want to be part of James Rhodes’ Great Instrument Amnesty and receive free instruments for your school? Unsurprisingly many answered yes and the Don’t Stop The Music team was inundated with applications through the registermyschool.co.uk website.
The team then contacted many of the teachers, head teachers and other staff members who applied on behalf of their school, especially those that demonstrated the greatest enthusiasm for the project, passion for improving music in their school and willingness to teach the instruments.
Questions ranged from ‘What difference will this project make to your school and your class generally?’ to practical queries such as: ‘Are there any teachers in the school who know how to play instruments?’, ‘Do you have somewhere in mind to store the instruments?’ and ‘Do you have a music budget?’ – as well as questions around their current provision of music tuition.
Of the schools who applied, 150 went on to become participants in the project.
And since then they have been busy getting ready for
their instrument delivery, which will take place after the amnesty
ends on 17 October 2014. Some schools have created YouTube videos to raise awareness of the amnesty, while others are reaching
out to their local press.
The instruments themselves are not randomly distributed. When applying to join the amnesty, schools selected their preferred instruments to receive according to the abilities and skills of their teaching staff – and other factors, such as the interests of their pupils. However, although their requests will be prioritised, what each school receives is ultimately dependant on the public donations to the instrument amnesty.
So the more donations made; the more chance a school has of receiving their dreamed-of instruments. And every single instrument counts, be it a tuba, triangle or timpani, so donate your instrument now!
