The schools singing programme made in Yorkshire

I am looking at a job advert for five new full-time choral directors, pension included, in the Birmingham area. ‘So what?’, you might ask. But you might also reasonably ask: ‘Five? Full time? With a pension?’. In a year where the BBC is thinking twice about continuing to fund the BBC Singers, the UK’s only professional full-time vocal ensemble, you might be forgiven for wondering how there are five brand-new, permanent choral director posts being advertised anywhere in the UK. The answer starts (like all the best things, as natives like me will tell you) in West Yorkshire.

The Diocese of Leeds Schools Singing Programme was founded in 2003 and has grown steadily to include 71 Catholic state schools stretching from Ripon to Wakefield. The programme reaches just under 6,500 children weekly across the diocese and includes more than 150 vocal groups. Half of the schools in the programme have catchments that include areas considered to be in the lowest 1% in terms of deprivation nationally. It has been covered in The Times, on Songs of Praise, and its choirs regularly broadcast on national radio. It is no longer the ‘promising enterprise’ it used to be. Rather, it is now established as one of the definitive models of what can be achieved with seed funding; with the boldness to head into the classroom and engage with schools; and with the force of will to widen access.