If they're not actually physically ill, many teachers at the end of term simply crash out and try to recuperate before the next onslaught. But there is another way to re-energise, and over the past decade more than 200 teachers have tried it out.
The National Teachers' Choir was launched in 2015 by Ula Weber and Baz Chapman. Weber, a former teacher in primary schools and for music services, had gone freelance and found herself leading teacher-training workshops. ‘When you bring a group of teachers together, regardless of their subject, they sing really well,’ she says, ‘and it seems to be a very uplifting kind of experience for them just coming together to sing.’ She talked it over with her then friend (now husband) Chapman, who had contacts with various networks like Sing Up; and, realising that there wasn't a national group for teachers to come together to sing, they decided to go for it.
Finding a model that would work for teachers who, as Chapman says, ‘are always up against it in terms of time’, was a challenge, as was fitting around the school year. But they came up with a plan to run three short weekends a year, during school holidays and in different locations, including an annual visit to Snape Maltings, and see who turned up. Chapman explains: ‘We realised that there were likely to be really enthusiastic people who would follow us wherever we went, and others likely to join as a one-off, just to have the experience, and possibly come back next time we were in their part of the world.’
And so it has proved: the NTC has around 70 regular members, and others who take it on a case-by-case basis.
Each weekend is a ‘stand-alone mini-project’, explains Weber. ‘We come together for the first time on Saturday afternoon. For some people, it's the first time they've seen each other for ages, so there's lots of catching up. We start rehearsing, we have dinner together, and then continue on Sunday, through to a mini-performance on the Sunday afternoon. Everything is taught from scratch within 24 hours of the performance.’
Open to all
What makes this all the more remarkable is that the choir is not auditioned. It is open to everybody who is in education, regardless of their subject: student teachers, teaching assistants, head teachers, peripatetic teachers – everyone in regular teaching is welcome. Currently there are more primary school teachers than secondary on the books (about 3:1), with some music coordinators and a few peris; but most are non-specialists, who come principally for sheer enjoyment.
‘Singing with like-minded people still seems to be the main driver,’ says Chapman. ‘It's a strongly musical experience, and a social one, and also an emotional one – it's surprising how often we see people moved by the process of learning and singing and performing. Sometimes songs can be quite cathartic.’
The programme
At the weekends, each day starts with a warm-up leading into a gathering song, taught by rote. Choice of repertoire is a key issue when working with a mixed-ability choir. Weber explains: ‘I feel it's my responsibility to introduce my choirs to a little bit of everything. NTC has got a really fresh, vibrant sound – they sound exciting, and when they harmonise it's often an electrifying kind of vibe. We do a lot of modern songs – pop, folk, classical and gospel, including lots of arrangements that Baz writes for the choir.
‘As is the case with a lot of community choirs, there aren't that many guys, so we often find ourselves having to arrange for flexible voices; so if there's only one male baritone, he can be joined by a number of female baritones, or we just move some of the voice parts around. The “gathering song” may be a simple round or layering song, or something that sounds simple but can be extended into an interesting performance piece.’
Though the music NTC uses is not free for participants to take away and photocopy, most of the songs are available through the Schools Printed Music Licence (SPML) scheme.
Learning method
‘We teach things in different ways,’ says Weber. ‘We use scores, but sometimes we do things by rote because of a performance that might be coming up where we can't use sheet music or we don't have a piano. So, we'll just spend the weekend learning a cappella songs by rote. Sometimes we focus on harmonising; we did a Disney weekend a few years ago; and once Alexander L'Estrange wrote a commission for us, so the whole weekend was learning that.’
Whatever the repertoire, Weber uses a ‘jigsaw’ approach, learning different sections (‘never start at the beginning’) until all the notes are learned and pieced together by the end of the first day; the second day can then be spent tidying and polishing in preparation for the performance.
As Chapman says, the main driver for participants is enjoyment. But for those who also find themselves leading music in a school, there is some helpful CPD to be gained as well, from the warm-ups and vocal health exercises to the methodology of quickly getting people learning and singing. ‘There's something in the magic of the way that [Ula] goes about putting together a weekend's worth of repertoire and teaching it,’ he explains, ‘which means an extraordinary 24 hours where they start off knowing nothing and it's performance-ready by the following afternoon. The modelling of how that's done, the demystifying of it, is useful from a CPD perspective. We know that some of the teachers now use a similar approach.’
Positive outcome
Tributes for NTC's tenth anniversary express some of the gains participants have received: ‘Thank you for giving me the confidence to lead singing assemblies and to start a boys' choir at school’; ‘It sparked into a love of singing that I nurtured and eventually grew into the confidence to lead singing at school.’ And Weber shares a memory of a singer who underwent a major transition: ‘She came as a very inexperienced and nervous member and singer; and over the years she's developed to the point where she has just signed up for a Sing for Pleasure conducting course, having started up a school choir and another singing group for people with Parkinson's. She puts it all down to those early years with NTC.’
So impressive is the NTC that it has attracted David Lawrence as its Patron. Weber remembers, ‘David was part of the first weekend that we ran immediately after lockdown. You could see the emotion when he first started to get the singers to sing in front of him; he was just weeping, it was such a moving moment.’
Although the NTC is partnered with organisations such as Music Mark, Sing for Pleasure, Sing Up, and Friday Afternoons, as a business model it is, in Chapman's words, ‘very light on our feet’ and is termed a club and society. It has no core funding, nor sponsor, operating solely on the fees that are charged for the weekends, which are kept ‘as manageable and affordable as possible for everyone.’
‘Sometimes that's frustrating,’ adds Chapman, ‘because we'd love to have more funds to do a bit more; but relying on funding presents its own challenges. We've always wanted to base ourselves on a business model that goes, “as long as we have 30+ people for a weekend, we're at least going to break even on it.” And if we're able to carry some funds forward into a future weekend, great – we'll have a guest conductor come along or do something different.
‘I think one of the reasons we're still here 10 years on is because we haven't tried to expand too much or get beyond ourselves, but to do something that never wanders far from its original purpose – which is teachers having a wonderful time singing.’
