The Muse is collaborating with some Ōtautahi schools, to demonstrate the power and joy of bringing a holistic, high quality classroom music programme to every child.

From 2023 – 2025 we ran a pilot at Whītau school, where children developed foundation skills in year one and two, that expanded to extensive musicianship and music literacy as they progressed through to year four. Watch this space to hear about our new Lighthouse Schools launching in Ōtautahi.

Read some reflections on the programme here.

As well as being transformative for the individual children, our aim is to demonstrate how effective and cost effective it is to use this approach. One teacher, with strong musicianship skills, trained in the Kodály approach, can help every child in the school develop musical literacy and confidence, embedded in strong aural skills.

We develop coordination and understanding of part work through complex, fun body percussion and games. The children develop resilience for learning, and enjoy the challenge of trying hard things that improve with practice.

New Zealand has a strong itinerant instrumental programme for secondary school students. We believe the best use of resources at primary school is to give every child the opportunity to develop general musicianship skills, that can then be applied to any instrument they take up. We believe the voice should be every person’s first instrument, and music is the birth right of every person, not just those who can afford private tuition.