Students from Ash Field Academy perform a rhythm piece as part of their BTEC and Introduction to Music work (NB: the video will begin playing automatically beneath the accompanying text)

Ash Field Academy is a special school in Leicester catering for students aged 4-19 with a range of SEN and physical disabilities.

The group shown in the video is a mixed-age class taken from KS4 and KS5. The class is a mixture of BTEC and Music Option students taking Drake Music’s Introduction to Music course.

There are 11 students in the class and all have physical disabilities, including cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and visual impairment.

Most are keen musicians and practice music in their own time as well as at school. I wanted the course to give students some music leadership skills, so activities were designed to give students leadership opportunities and to model ideas for inclusive music making.

We have used a range of simple improvisation scores, incorporating students’ own choices of musical ideas taken from music which is special to them.

The course lead up to a public performance at the Richard Attenborough Centre (Leicester University Arts Centre) where we showcased individual and group performances.