All together now: A review of the Mary Immaculate College children’s choir

Abstract

The Mary Immaculate College (MIC) Children’s Choir is a university-school-community initiative aimed at complementing and enhancing existing music education provision in primary schools. From the outset, a research and evaluation element has been built into the project, to strengthen the efficacy of the initiative and ensure that the future of the project is research informed and led. This report outlines the learning from the first two years of the MIC Children’s Choir, 2013-15. The choir is a partnership between the Department of Arts Education and Physical Education and the Transforming Education through Dialogue (TED) Project at MIC, in partnership with Music Generation Limerick City (MGLC). The choral initiative supports each one of the partners in varying and complementary ways. It feeds directly into the MIC Strategic Plan by welcoming children from schools in the PLUS1 Network on campus. The children engage in learning and cultural processes which aim to create positive experiences within a third level institution and raise aspirations for educational progression. From a teaching and learning standpoint, MIC students build choral leadership skills and experiences to impact on schools and communities into the future. From a TED perspective, the choir strengthens connections between DEIS schools and the expertise of college staff, enabling MIC to develop enhanced outreach strategies and make meaningful links with the community. The choir supports the MGLC aim of contributing to the development of a national system of local music education services which are publicly supported, socially inclusive, community focused, multi-genre and of high quality to complement the teaching and learning of music in the classroom.