Back in March, when schools were ordered to close “until further notice”, many reacted by singing: children and staff sang together in impromptu assemblies held in classrooms, halls, dining rooms - whichever rooms they could find. At Silver Springs Primary Academy in Stalybridge, they went one step further: they took the singing out into the playground, where nearly 200 children serenaded the residents of the neighbouring care home to help keep their spirits up as their enforced self-isolation began.

Whether those schools knew it or not, there is good evidence that singing provides all sorts of therapeutic and community-building benefits. A 2017 study by the University of East Anglia found that a group intervention of singing improved wellbeing and social skills. Other studies have revealed that singing can help to form social bonds quickly and that those bonds can be stronger than those formed via other interventions; that singing can make people to feel more positive; and that it can have an impact on motivation to learn, community cohesiveness and even body posture.

“Singing together has a powerful effect on mood,” explains Robin Dunbar, emeritus professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford. “It not only releases endorphins but provides a sense of closeness and community. It bonds us more quickly than other social activities.”

So the decision to turn to singing at a time of crisis was likely extremely beneficial. However, could those schools keep it up during the lockdown period? Many seem to have found a way.

Jane Tailby, headteacher at Bridgetown Primary School in Stratford-upon-Avon, says her first reaction to the partial school closures was to reach for her guitar. From week one, she has sung every day with her small cohort of key workers’ children in the school hall.

“With our very reduced numbers in school, we’ve been using songs and singing at Bridgetown to lift everyone’s spirits and bring our children together,” she says, adding: “It’s been really good fun!”

Taking to the high Cs

But Tailby, herself an accomplished pianist who normally fills her school with music, wanted to give all her pupils - not just those few in school but those at home, too - the chance to keep on singing regularly.

“I’m uploading a weekly assembly on to our website for all those learning at home,” she explains. “I am choosing a song the children already know. I play the piano for the accompaniment and I hope that the children sing along in their own homes.

“I am hoping it will help to provide a strong sense of community and cohesion that we all need at the moment.”

Tailby is not alone: schools around the UK have found ways of singing together and using music to keep their school community going. Many are keeping in touch with their pupils by sending them collated videos of staff singing in their homes. Seven Fields Primary School in Penhill, Swindon, sent every child a video of their teachers singing along to the 1985 hit Together in Electric Dreams - a track the headteacher played to the children at the beginning of assembly.

Meanwhile, at one Lincolnshire primary school, parents of the Year 1 class organised their own video choir and reduced the teachers to tears by sending them a film of every child singing a line of the Disney song You’ve Got a Friend in Me.

Search social media and you will find hundreds of examples of singing being used in the above ways.

Primary teacher Ed Finch, meanwhile, is doing a #PandemicMusicChallenge on Twitter most evenings, in which he brings the teaching community together with a song suggested by his followers, and he asks people to join in from their own homes.

Teaching music is being prioritised by schools, too. Simon Toyne, chair of the Music Teachers’ Association and executive director of music for the David Ross Education Trust, says that music education in the trust’s 34 primary and secondary schools has become even more prominent in this time of crisis.

“Music immediately came to the fore,” he explains. “We were faced, as everyone else was, with some very anxious children and adults, and it became very clear that music really is a primal need. The way in which it makes such a palpable difference to people’s wellbeing is really powerful.”

Toyne says schools in the academy chain are continuing music lessons through online teaching platforms, as well as tapping into online singing education initiatives such as The Voices Foundation (voices.org.uk), which has been delivering free daily singing lessons every lunchtime since schools closed.

“We also put out something every lunchtime called ‘Listen to this’, which is a daily two-minute video introducing a famous piece of music (#DRETlistentothis on Twitter or Instagram) and that has become increasingly popular,” says Toyne.

“My hunch is that children are going to be engaging with music far more at home than they normally would be during their school’s curriculum - it’s going to be more than that one hour a week for secondary students.”

Trebled times

With all this singing and music going on during the pandemic, it seems odd that music has been sidelined in the curriculum. Music teachers are facing stagnant pay - and in some cases working for free - as schools struggle with shrinking budgets. This all comes at a time when wellbeing concerns for children and staff were rising.

With those concerns likely to be even greater when children return to school, and with music having had such an important role during the closures, are we likely to see a positive shift in how music is perceived, both in schools and at a policy level?

Toyne believes that when schools reopen, it will be essential to rethink the role that music plays in education.

“It’s interesting, when the chips are down, how we really need music, and our challenge is when the chips come back up again, to keep that there,” he says. “Music really needs to be at the centre of all schools because it’s what makes us human.”

He is also hopeful that the online connections that are forming during this time will create a framework for teachers to collaborate like never before and will put singing back on the curriculum agenda for good. “The experience at the moment is that all schools are in this together and we are not requiring students or teachers just to be their own resources,” he says. “They are looking instead to other schools or arts organisations. The resources are up there and there is a sense of being a community.

“If thousands of kids are following Joe Wicks virtually, why can’t we have the same thing for music in our primary schools? Why not have virtual singing assemblies for everyone?”

Lucy Edkins is a freelance journalist

This article originally appeared in the 15 May 2020 issue under the headline “Time to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony?”