Building mental resilience through music in schools

It’s five years since a tide of mental health challenges first engulfed an estimated 1.5 million young people in a world turned upside down by Covid and the cost-of-living crisis.

There are no easy fixes to this enduring and tragic epidemic, but we have never been short on the wisdom needed to promote good mental health. Back in Ancient Greece, philosophers like Pythagoras promoted music as a source of therapy for both mind and body and almost ever since academics have been expounding the mental health benefits of music.

The latest ABRSM Making Music report comes to the same conclusion but via a different route. Our report includes an independent survey of 1,000 5-17-year-olds and highlights new evidence of the benefits of music by giving young people from all backgrounds a platform to voice their own experiences – and the results are as compelling as any academic study.

Capturing changing trends in music

The survey, part of a series of reports which have been capturing changing trends in music learning over 30 years, shows that 84% children and young people themselves recognise that engaging with music – playing, learning and listening – is good for their mental health and wellbeing (almost as many people of all ages, 80%, came to the same conclusion).

This report is complemented by a survey of music teachers, with almost three quarters of them describing music as “extremely important for the mental health and wellbeing” of their pupils.

As the report makes clear, there are mental health benefits to engaging with music in all kinds of ways – you don’t have to become an ace pianist or trumpet player to reap the rewards. Just listening to music, especially live music, can lift us, thrill us and take us to fantastic places and away from the darkest corners of our minds – we all know that.

Those of us who have taken part in a musical performance at any level – especially as part of a group – know something else: that the mental health benefits derived from it are even greater than those experienced as a passive listener and can  inspire a unique sense of joy, increased confidence, a deep connection with those taking part and, from that, a sense of belonging, that we are part of something far greater than the sum of all its human parts.

Benefits should not be the sole preserve of the privileged

Benefits like these must not be the sole preserve of the privileged, exam candidates or residents of one area and not another (the Children’s Commissioner calls waiting times for Children and Adolescent’s Mental Health Services a postcode lottery, with waits ranging from 147 days in Sunderland to just 4 days in Southend).

Even without the indisputable evidence of all the other benefits it brings, young people of all ages should have access to music learning so they can build the mental resilience they need to thrive, regardless of who they are and where they come from.

Other ancient minds like Plato and Aristotle understood the power of music’s role in education and the two were inextricably linked in Ancient Greece because of the immense value attached to the benefits of music.

Heeding the example of the Greeks and making school the place where children and young people today access these resilience-building experiences is a no brainer because it is – or should be – the one place where everyone can get a fair chance to access them.

As the report itself says: “It is at school where equality of access and opportunity is greatest, where all children can be reached. It is also at school where committed leadership, excellent teaching and encouragement can provide all young learners demonstrating musical talent with the support – and signposting – they need to make the most of their musical talents.”

Exposure must happen before the cliff edge

Making Music illuminates some of the detail of when children and young people should be exposed to these music experiences by setting the context, showing how three quarters of all respondents were under 12 years old when they started to learn to play an instrument and revealing that interest in formal music learning typically first hits a cliff edge when they are 11.

Supporting that first taste of music performance is everything because it can set in train benefits that will be with people for life and that can shape their future success as individuals.

Whether it is through large class groups of pupils playing the recorder, the ukulele or the violin, it is clear this exposure must happen at primary school, before the transition to high school and before the first cliff edge of interest.

Creating the right conditions so children and young people can realise these incredible benefits and build the mental resilience they need to thrive in this challenging world must be the priority for society today.

We must start by making sure that music in school does not become the postcode lottery that it is in the case of mental health support for young people; we must look closely at how we support each other with quality resources; we must invest in our music teachers; and we must genuinely focus on creativity in our schools and music’s role in fostering the creative expression and identities of children and young people today.