Our Interactive Music-Making (IMM) programme has come a long way since its first delivery in 2010. The award-winning annual training course has seen over 70 early years practitioners receive training, providing thousands of young children access to meaningful music as part of their early development opportunities.

Set up in direct response to demand in the South East London early years sector served by Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, IMM was devised by our director, Alexia Quin, and Sarah Hadley (Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust). We have been proud to deliver the course as a joint initiative with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust over the years and we have welcomed the contribution of their music therapists to our teaching. Together we have championed the training and the use of Interactive Music-Making across early years settings in South-East London and beyond.

Strengthening our Impact

With a firmly-established programme and a wealth of overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants and setting managers, the time felt right to look towards its future and build on its momentum.

Considering how we might proactively strengthen our teaching and extend the programme’s reach, we introduced a new Associate model of delivery in 2022. Whilst continuing our existing association with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, we have now welcomed new working relationships with music therapy and early years organisations from across London and further afield.

Opportunities for guest music therapist lectures from a range of Associate organisations would strengthen our teaching, with different voices bringing a range of contemporary expertise and diverse perspectives.

Importantly, working together with a range of organisations who share our values would be a proactive, collaborative way to enable more children to benefit from targeted, early intervention Interactive Music-Making can offer when embedded into early years provision by graduates from our training.

The fact that practitioners are able to form deeper connections with their children through their Interactive Music-Making sessions but also use the material and exercises they are taught, without losing their individual creativity, has been great to experience.

Marina Emmanouil
Music Therapist, North London Music Therapy

I’ve seen first-hand from attending our students’ presentation day, the difference this course can make to early years practitioners and the care and education opportunities they provide. For many practitioners, the IMM training offers valuable affirmation of their existing expertise, the opportunity to get to know the children they care for in a new way, and to see each child’s progress, nurtured through their IMM sessions, often extend into their wider nursery or home lives.

By extending the course through our Associate model, it opens the door for may more early years practitioners – and the children they work with – to benefit from this training.

A new chapter

Additionally, we have noticed growing interest in our IMM programme outside London, with practitioners joining the course from as far afield as Scotland, Bradford, Crewe, Bedfordshire, Oxford and the South West. Creating a broad network of Associate organisations will continue to increase the visibility of the training among early years settings up and down the country and may help us identify pockets of demand in particular areas to guide where we deliver the course in the future.

As I’ve taken on more responsibility for the coordination of the course, it’s been exciting to introduce these organisations and with them, new voices in to the delivery of the training.

For a second year running, our Associate relationships with Nordoff and Robbins, North London Music Therapy, Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, and Quaggy Development Trust have helped to enrich our teaching and champion the course’s impact.

It is always a pleasure to share skills and expertise with early years practitioners who are looking to extend or develop their work using music in a variety of settings.

Hannah Smith
Music Therapist, Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust

With a new cohort of students just setting out on their Interactive Music-Making journeys, I look forward to seeing how our continued collaborations will enhance the students’ experiences and in turn, enable many more young children to thrive through the support of music.