Music must hit right note in schools

A BRIEF chat I once had with a civil servant sticks in my mind. On noting my occupation, she paused in her task and reminisced about how much she had enjoyed playing the recorder in a school band. Amid the tedium of form filling, I was struck by her expression of genuine pleasure at the memory of musical activity with classmates after a gap of decades.

Ireland trades heavily on its image as a musical nation. Our national symbol is after all a musical instrument — the harp. But the reality is that less than 1% of our primary school children learn to play a musical instrument.

The primary school Arts curriculum states that it seeks ‘to provide for sensory and creative enrichment and contribute to all children’s holistic development. Note the word ‘All’!