Schools given music therapy grant for SEN students

Newlands School

Newlands Special School, Middleton, and Great Howarth School, Smallbridge, were among 20 schools chosen in the Greater Manchester area to receive grants to aid children with special educational needs (SEN).

The money was first awarded to Manchester charity CEDE by the OneFamily Foundation, which then distributed the it to schools as part of a scheme to give SEN students "much needed" extra support.

The money from the award is being used to pay specialist teachers to deliver music clinics.

Speaking for Great Howarth School, Clinical Director Dr Wendy Coetzee said: “As a specialist educational provision the school is delighted to have been awarded these sessions. As a newly developing school it will enable our young people to benefit from Music therapy sessions which will be delivered to our young people over four sessions at the school. We are always looking for new and innovative ways to improve and enrich the lives of our young people and help them to find new ways to express themselves.

“We believe that music therapy will aid the pupils’ learning by giving them the opportunity to take part in a creative piece of work in their peer group, aiding them to target their attention, help impulse control, improve their communication, aid memory and focus their attention on learning by improving their attention span and motor skills.”

“As the pupils work together as a peer group we hope it will facilitate a process of self-exploration and provide a channel for transforming frustration, anger and aggression into a creative piece of work and enhance our pupils socialisation skills. We greatly value this unique opportunity to benefit from this experience for our young people”.

Helen Wilkinson, Deputy Head at Newlands Special School, said: “We are very grateful for the opportunity to have a musician working with our children on an exciting project developing voices and instruments to create wonderful music.

“Musical experiences provide exciting, hands-on activities which are very accessible and enjoyable for all of our children”.

The charity was nominated for the award by OneFamily customer and charity trustee Bernard Nwaiwu, who said: “We are absolutely delighted to have won the award and we want to thank everyone who got behind us and voted. These sessions will make such a difference to so many children across Greater Manchester and we can’t thank OneFamily enough for helping to make the project happen.”