Matthew is Headteacher at Westgate Primary School in Warwick. Westgate is a single-form school catering for children between 4 and 11 years of age.  

 

He is hugely passionate about offering a wide and varied curriculum for the children at his school, with a particular focus on music, the arts and sport. Post-pandemic, there has been a particular focus on developing the music provision at Westgate. Weekly, hour-long, music lessons are delivered by staff at the school, a specialist teacher from Warwickshire County Music, a choral entrepreneur, through Warwick – A Singing Town and violin specialist teachers from the Warwick Schools Foundation. This interwoven, and coordinated provision, has enabled Westgate to meet the requirements of the Government’s Music Model Curriculum and make rapid progress to more than catch up the lost learning following two years of disrupted learning caused by the COVID pandemic.

 

A measure of the success of the programme was captured in comments made by Richard Hart, Head of County Music, following a joint lesson observation when he stated: “Your Year 5 children had a better musical knowledge than the GCSE class that I watched yesterday.”  

 

Matthew believes that future of high-quality music provision in primary schools lies in coordinating with neighbouring schools, specialist providers and local musical groups and choirs. As a town, Warwick is rich with a tapestry of musical experience and key musicians who are generous in sharing their talent and giving up their time. Matthew will share how the Westgate model has been achieved by looking beyond the school’s walls to work collaboratively with talented musicians and community groups in order to deliver inspirational teaching. It is evident that the sheer joy of music making and singing feeds the soul of the school and enriches each child within the Westgate family.