Whole-school music mentoring: Effecting positive change for teaching and learning in early-childhood and primary education

Abstract

Global approaches to provide effective in-service music teaching education to generalist primary teachers include intensive summer schools, collaborations with professional orchestras, school-driven initiatives, and in situ mentoring programs. This article describes and analyses a qualitative case study of whole-school music mentoring, where over 7 years every classroom teacher in an infants’ school (K–2) participated in a music mentoring intervention. Data were generated through interviews with multiple respondent groups, reporting teacher, mentor, and principal perspectives on the impact of whole-school music mentoring. The findings indicate the importance of the school principal’s support for flourishing music education. All participants reported an initial lack of teacher confidence in teaching music prior to mentoring, and teachers gaining confidence to sing in front of children and teach musical concepts. Key factors in the program’s success include development of music activities suitable to the local context; demonstration of music teaching and relevant resources; constructive feedback, ongoing support, and self-reflection; incorporation of music activities into everyday teaching; language development for non-English-speaking students; enhanced teacher motivation for professional development; and professional benefits for mentors. The study demonstrates that this sustained, in situ whole-school music mentoring model is effective in building teacher confidence and competence to teach music and embedding music education across a school community. The mentoring model serves as an example for early-childhood and primary education in other settings.

Introduction

The Australian National Curriculum music learning area expects students in Foundation to Year 2 (K–2) levels to participate in making and responding to music, including understanding of basic concepts of rhythm, pitch, and dynamics, singing and playing instruments, and improvising, composing, and performing (ACARA, 2025). While these goals are realistic for specialist music teachers—in Australia this term applies to Bachelor of Music Education graduates who achieve instrumental or vocal proficiency as well as teaching qualifications—they are challenging for many generalist early-childhood and primary teachers due to a lack of music education during their initial teacher education (ITE) (Collins & Hocking, 2023), a situation which is reflected internationally (Arostegui, 2016). Russell-Bowie’s (2009) survey of 1,000 pre-service teachers in Australia, the United States, Namibia, South Africa, and Ireland regarding their attitudes to teaching music highlighted “teachers’ lack of musical experience; the low priority given to music in schools; the lack of resources, time to teach music, subject knowledge and adequate preparation time” (p. 23). Some higher education providers have developed interactive music education modules including peer-directed collaborative digital music-making to address these gaps. For example, Carroll and Harris (2023) focused on the use of digital tools by upper primary pre-service teachers utilising a collaborative, informal learning model where teachers operated as facilitators of classroom instruction. While the use of digital tools improved participants’ self-efficacy, it did not alter their self-concept of musical talent based on performance. Recent national reports have documented a “crisis facing music education in England in particular” (Daubney et al., 2019, p. 2) and a significant decline in music provision in Australian primary schools (Collins & Hocking, 2023). Teacher interviews have highlighted the difficulty of fitting music into the Foundation stage curriculum, warning that the development of children’s innate musicality may be at risk (Digby, 2023).

The question of how to provide effective music teaching education to generalist early-childhood and primary teachers continues to be debated globally. Initiatives include intensive university-based summer school programs focused on singing and accompanying skills and modelling teaching approaches, where demonstrations of practical teaching ideas were reported to improve teacher confidence to teach music and utilise creative strategies (Biasutti et al., 2015).

Other education approaches have included collaborating with a major symphony orchestra. The London Symphony Orchestra administered continued professional development music programs for primary school teachers in 2008–2010 that aimed at “equipping them with skills for integrating music into cross curricular activities, as well as for designing lesson plans in music that met the needs of their specific classrooms” (Varvarigou et al., 2012, p. 149). Teachers attended weekly group sessions with musicians from the orchestra and tutors from local music services as well as whole-day composition workshops. The program evaluation reported “positive outcomes with regard to quality musical experiences for the pupils and high-quality training in music for non-specialist primary teachers” (p. 164).

Another approach to designing professional development for Singaporean generalist primary teachers utilised video-mediated peer observation (Bautista et al., 2019). The videos provided contextualised examples of classroom practices, inspired lesson design, better understanding and implementation of teaching strategies, anticipated student responses, and helped build teacher confidence. The findings highlighted the need for professional development to respond “to teachers’ own voices in order to be truly meaningful and transformative” (p. 31).

Due to the lack of music education for generalist pre-service primary teachers, some schools have implemented their own initiatives to address this gap in teaching capabilities. De Vries (2015) described a primary school in Australia where the principal supported five teachers to attend “a professional development session on teaching singing that focused on good singing practice, which included warming up the voice prior to singing, posture, breathing, improving pitch accuracy, and enunciation” (p. 215). This led to singing becoming the core of music activities at the school, resulting in a community of practice with a shared vision of music education. A similar approach was adopted by seven different primary schools in the United Kingdom accessing support from specialists and external organisations to promote singing (Lamont et al., 2012). The study reported that the success of whole-class vocal tuition depended on enthusiastic teachers and supportive principals collaborating with a singing leader who had keyboard skills. The intervention resulted in integrating “singing into children’s wider musical learning and development within the curriculum” (p. 251). Another primary school in the United Kingdom decided against bringing in specialist expertise and, instead, developed weekly music lessons to be taught by every teacher at the school (Garrett, 2019). Teachers “actively sought out and shared different experiences and perceptions; and had the opportunity to experience music teaching first-hand and to reflect upon these experiences in an in-depth manner” (p. 225). The principal stated that “all staff have the capacity to teach music because they are effective educators, rather than expert musicians” (p. 226). Teachers took on distributed leadership roles in training and discussion sessions and mentored young teachers starting at the school, gradually changing perceptions that only qualified musicians can teach music.

This review of literature has demonstrated varied approaches to delivering music teaching education to generalist primary teachers. While these interventions benefited a number of schools and teachers, they were driven by committed individuals rather than national educational policy. This highlights the need to continue trialling other models of delivering music teaching education that could work nationally as well as in local contexts. Whole-school mentoring—described here as sustained, in situ mentoring of all teachers at a school over a number of years—is one such model. Whole-school mentoring focuses on building a local community of music teaching practice (De Vries, 2015) which allows for multiple levels of participation (from observer to active participant), levels of expertise (novice to expert), and is sustained over an extended period of time (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

This article reports on one example of whole-school music mentoring undertaken in an Australian infants’ school (K–2) and teacher, music mentor, and principal perspectives of the impacts of such an approach on teaching and learning at the school. In particular, we focus on the following research questions:

• What impact did whole-school music mentoring have on the development of generalist classroom teacher skills and confidence to teach music?

• What were the benefits of whole-school music mentoring for music specialist teachers?

• What were the benefits of whole-school music mentoring for students?

Theoretical framework

Our approach was informed by theories of teacher mentoring and approaches to workplace teacher mentoring in music.

Teacher mentoring

Mentoring is now considered an essential part of professional development in most professions and disciplines (Clutterbuck et al., 2017; Irby et al., 2020). Teacher mentoring has become a significant focus in mentoring research over the past 20 years. Hobson (2017) identified 10 factors contributing to effective teacher mentoring: mentees’ openness to mentors and mentoring, relational trust, mentors’ use of appropriate mentoring strategies, mentor selection, mentee–mentor matching, mentor (and mentee) preparation and development, opportunities for regular and sustained contact between mentor and mentee, reward and status, mentoring coordinator role, and institutional and contextual support for mentoring. Practical guidance for mentors highlighted five key mentor roles: Support, Acculturator, Model, Sponsor, and Educator (Malderez, 2024). This includes supporting teachers making informed decisions about teaching, translating educational theories into practical applications, facilitating development of ideas for activities and lesson plans, and promoting reflection.

An earlier conception of teacher mentoring identified “three archetypes of mentoring: supervision, support and collaborative self-development” (Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 154). This meta-analysis of educational policies across Australia, Finland, and Sweden emphasised benefits of collaborative self-development, concluding that “by practicing mentoring as collaborative self-development, mentor–mentees are likely to develop dispositions towards engagement in a professional community committed to individual and collective self-development” (p. 157).

While tertiary teacher education programs include teaching practicums under supervision of experienced teachers, researchers note that the numerous challenges faced by newly qualified teachers require on-site mentoring to assist their socialisation, growth, and development in a specific workplace (Langdon et al., 2016; Othman & Senom, 2020). Research shows that teachers value mentor expertise and appreciate mentoring strategies such as “observation, reflection on, and provocation of their practice” (Langdon et al., 2016, p. 157).

Workplace teacher mentoring in music

In addition to mentoring in administrative and organisational skills, development of specific skills to teach music is needed to address limited teacher education in this area. To develop unique skills and strategies required for music teaching mentoring, the Music Mentor Plus program in the United States has focused on introducing mentoring strategies to music teachers supervising student teachers during practicum (Berg & Rickels, 2018), as music educators receive little mentoring and support in their first year of working (Gallo, 2018).

Emerging research has also addressed music mentoring for generalist primary teachers. Several studies reported positive outcomes from music mentoring delivered to teachers at their schools, rather than through off-site professional development courses. For example, Barrett et al. (2019) evaluated an Australian program of in situ mentoring of classroom teachers by music specialists. The mentors developed music activities collaboratively with the mentees utilising local resources, demonstrated teaching strategies in the mentees’ classrooms, and gradually handed over music teaching to classroom teachers as their confidence grew. A follow-up study 1 year later demonstrated that the positive impacts of the program had endured (Barrett & Zhukov, 2024).

A comparable approach was undertaken in the United Kingdom where the British Kodály Academy developed teaching modules and pedagogical approaches for the First Thing Music intervention delivered by music mentors to 55 teachers in the north of England (Ibbotson & See, 2021). After a whole-day initial workshop, mentors visited the schools daily in the first few weeks, “leading the 15 min[ute] sessions at first, but gradually handing over the session leadership role to the teachers themselves as they gained confidence” (p. 5), with six additional 3-hour training sessions through the year. Similar to the outcomes of the Australian program, the British study reported a positive change in teachers’ attitudes to music and recognition of its important role in the curriculum, improvement in children’s confidence, self-esteem, attention, and consistent behaviour, and marked development of vocabulary amongst children from non-English-speaking backgrounds.

An in situ mentoring approach trialled in three primary schools in The Netherlands focused on musical play and music education of teachers (Nieuwmeijer et al., 2021). Fourteen teachers were offered six monthly 90-min training sessions in their schools and, after learning about musical play, initiated this in their classrooms and recorded students’ responses. The evaluation of the intervention showed that teachers gained knowledge and instructional skills to teach music, and became more inspired and motivated to learn from each other.

This overview of teacher mentoring highlights the importance of support, modelling, practical implementation of educational theories, reflection, and collaborative self-development. The literature on workplace teacher mentoring in music illustrates a variety of approaches of how music mentoring can be delivered and demonstrates positive outcomes for teachers and students.

Methodology

Case study context

An Australian infants’ government school (K–2) in the state of New South Wales was the case study of a whole-school mentoring approach (Yin, 2018). The principal committed annual funds for at least two teachers to participate in music mentoring every year over the period 2015–2021. Over 7 years, three music mentors worked with 12 teachers at the school, resulting in the entire teaching staff completing the mentoring program in 2022. The school is located in a low socioeconomic area of a major city with a high density of migrant communities. The majority of students are from non-English-speaking, Arabic and Mongolian backgrounds.

Program description

The mentoring program began with discussions regarding each teacher’s existing music skills, current student cohort, classroom resources, and personal goals, followed by observation of mentors teaching music in their own schools and in the mentee’s class. Ideas for music activities were co-constructed collaboratively and implemented with mentors initially demonstrating and gradually handing over music teaching to teachers as they gained more confidence. Regular planning meetings and debriefs after lessons supported the development of mentees’ music teaching skills. Each teacher was mentored for two school terms. ¹

Data collection

Ethics clearances for the study were obtained from Monash university . Interview invitations were emailed by a third party to all teachers and mentors who had participated in the music mentoring program and to the school’s principal. Twelve participants volunteered to be interviewed and contacted researchers directly: the principal, three music mentors, and eight teachers. The interviews were conducted over Zoom, audio-recorded, and transcribed by a professional transcription company. The transcripts were member-checked prior to commencement of the analyses.

Semi-structured interviews focused on music provision at the school prior to the mentoring program, mentor background and experience, mentoring implementation processes, observed benefits for teachers and students, impact on educational practices at the school, and long-term learning and developmental outcomes.

Analyses

Thematic analyses of the 12 interviews were undertaken by the two researchers independently following the guidelines of Braun and Clarke (2022). After initial exploration of transcripts, each researcher coded the interviews individually. Emerging themes were further developed and refined over iterative online discussions between the researchers, with participant quotations illustrating the findings. The themes were interpreted through the lens of existing literature on teacher and music mentoring.

Findings

The impact of the whole-school approach on the development of music teaching skills and generalist classroom teacher confidence: Teacher perspectives

The eight teachers reported limited prior experience in music and a lack of confidence in teaching music. Their approach to music in the classroom before mentoring was to play YouTube clips instead of using their own voice.

I’m not musical at all. I’ve got no sense of rhythm. Teaching music was something that was so foreign and scary to me. I need all the help I could get. (T7)

I don’t really have much music experience or music background. I always lacked confidence in that area. (T2)

The teachers reported that building up their confidence to sing in front of children and teach musical concepts were their main goals, which they felt they had achieved.

The program increased confidence in myself teaching, not only teaching but singing. (T6)

Since the music mentoring program, I actually do the music lesson, I sit down in a circle, using music instruments such as a drum, sing a tune, or give each child an opportunity to make a rhythm and we have to copy. (T2)

Teachers described mentors leading by example, first showing how to teach music in a mentee’s class, sharing their musical knowledge, explaining various strategies, providing resources, gradually handing over to the classroom teachers, and providing feedback and support. Mentor demonstrations and teachers filming themselves and reflecting on their teaching proved to be effective mentoring strategies.

The mentor came in and modelled it and then let me copy it and take over and run with it. And then we’d discuss new songs and actions. (T4)

The mentor would demonstrate, and then maybe the next week I’d have to show how I incorporated it or consolidated what was shown the week before. (T5)

Positive relationships were built based on mutual respect and trust, with mentors listening to teacher concerns and answering their questions.

Mentor enthusiasm and knowledge, I knew if I asked them a question, they knew how to answer it. (T7)

Mentors have to listen to people and form a good relationship with people. They have to take on board what you’re saying and realise that you need to have agency of what you’re doing. (T1)

Teachers highlighted the mentors’ passion for music and its importance in the school curriculum.

Mentors were really passionate about music, and their enthusiasm definitely infiltrated the school. (T8)

It makes a lot difference having someone who’s so passionate about music and how it should be part of the curriculum. (T1)

The realisation that music needs to be incorporated into everyday teaching was momentous for teachers. In addition to teaching structured music lessons, teachers reported using music for transitions between lessons and “brain breaks.”

“This needs to be incorporated more in my everyday teaching” was a huge moment and just a realisation that I think myself and all the other colleagues definitely had. (T5)

Now I regularly use songs in transition, coming into the classroom, leaving the classroom, reading activities, always singing a song, using our body. It just gets their engagement back. (T7)

Most students at the school came from non-English-speaking backgrounds, with teachers reporting that singing at school led to greater student engagement in using the English language and children’s vocabulary development. Instead of a 9-month silent period, children from non-English-speaking backgrounds actively joined in learning much sooner.

Those children had no English at all. And they were singing before they were speaking which was exciting because you’ve got these children who don’t even know how to say hello and they’re just belting out tunes not even knowing what they’re singing but they’re still singing. (T4)

We find that with music, students are probably more motivated to be engaged in using language as opposed to a structured English lesson, and it just helps their language development. (T2)

Music mentoring changed the atmosphere in the classroom. Teachers described students constantly breaking into a song while doing art, writing, colouring, and lining up. Starting the day with music was seen as a way of activating students and preparing them for learning.

Now we could be doing art and the kids are singing along. They just break out into song all the time, nursery rhymes, the raps and things that I’ve been teaching them. (T3)

If children are belting out a song or if they’re dancing to a song, then they’re happier. At this age from five to seven, if they’re happy, then you’ve done your job as well. (T4)

The mentoring program was a catalyst for professional development amongst new staff. A teacher who recently joined the school noticed that students and teachers knew many songs and decided, “I wanted to know what they were singing, what knowledge they knew, so that I could also be part of it” (T6). One of the mentored teachers continued with further professional learning in music through the Department of Education and is now teaching as a music teacher K–6 in another school, taking every class for 1 hr per week. They said, “I’ve really extended that mentoring program for myself!” (T8).

Benefits of the whole-school music mentoring model for music specialist teachers: Mentor perspectives

Three music specialist teachers mentored 12 teachers at the school over 7 years in a whole-school music mentoring approach. The mentors were very experienced musicians and educators who wanted to share their knowledge and expertise with classroom teachers. Mentor 1 sang as a principal tenor with Opera Australia for 12 years and had over 20 years of specialist music teaching experience in primary schools. Mentor 2 specialised in early music performance and recorder, and had worked for 20 years in the Arts Unit of the New South Wales Department of Education. Mentor 3 was a specialist music teacher with 10 years of experience teaching music in primary classrooms and conducting choirs and ensembles.

Mentors aimed to help teachers overcome their fear of singing in front of students and of teaching music notation.

For all of them, it was to build the confidence for the teachers to sing in front of their students, and know that their voice is something that kids will love, no matter what. (M1)

One thing that I found was just to break down how music notation works, and teach them some basics about how rhythm and pitch are notated on a score. (M3)

Demonstrating basic music teaching approaches and providing relevant supporting materials such as recordings, videos, lesson plans, and song books helped build teachers’ confidence.

The activities started with me doing most of the teaching and everybody else observing. And then slowly moved towards the other teachers doing more of the teaching and me doing more of the observing. And then there was a two-way feedback process after lessons. (M3)

I recorded everything that I was doing so that they had a sound bite, so they could listen back to it and remember what the melody was. I encouraged them to film as we were going through. I gave them a sequence of ten lessons set out like a spiral curriculum. (M2)

Mentors collaborated with teachers in developing music programs that reflected the Australian curriculum and were supported by specific practical examples:

We mapped out a K–2 explanation of a music program with more explicit examples, but also how it links directly to each component of the Australian curriculum. (M1)

I tried to cover as much of the music curriculum as we could but not overcomplicate it and not get stuck on areas of detail that perhaps weren’t really going to be achievable in the scope of 16 sessions together. (M3)

Mentoring led to the development of student music skills and cross-overs into other learning areas.

Teachers started actually setting up their class in circles, and got confident passing songs around, and doing some of the activities whereby they’d get all their students to participate, and they got enthusiastic about the way children started listening to each other. (M1)

A student had drawn an artwork with a person singing and some music notation in the speech bubble. And the teacher and the students could see that it made rhythmic sense. It wasn’t just random stuff that they thought was music. That was a lovely moment that the student had successfully learned written notation and used it outside of the music classroom. (M3)

Bringing the joy of music to children from non-English-speaking backgrounds was very rewarding for mentors. Some children learnt to sing nursery rhymes in English before they were able to speak the language. Children enjoyed singing songs and playing musical games which led to increased student participation, creativity, and motivation in other curriculum areas such as literacy and numeracy.

This little boy hadn’t spoken a word in class. The music had captivated him. And then he started to sing his name, and that was the beginning of his journey with his new language and his new life. (M2)

A really large percentage of children came from non-English speaking backgrounds. And having this common language around the songs was a real joy for them, being able to have the whole class sing together and play a game. (M3)

Music mentoring improved morale and self-esteem of students and overall class cohesion.

Children were excited to see me at the school, because they knew that they would do music for an hour. They really enjoyed learning the songs and the games that I was doing, they thought it was fun. (M3)

Children like repetition, because they get very confident at doing it. With the confidence comes risk-taking, and they will also explore and demonstrate things in front of their peers without fear or concern. (M1)

The mentors were good listeners and able to build positive relationships with teachers they were mentoring. While mentees might have lacked music education, they were typically experienced classroom educators—passionate, hard-working, and with in-depth understanding of their students.

You need to be able to assess the abilities of that person that you’re mentoring, and quickly realise what their strengths are, and then work to those strengths. Because once they’re successful in those areas, then their confidence grows and they’re braver to tackle other things. (M2)

There’s always a certain amount of humility that should go into any mentorship, so there’s not this feeling that you’re demonstrating that you’re somehow a superior teacher, and they’re an inferior teacher. (M1)

The three mentors recognised the benefits of mentoring for their own teaching. They described how having to reflect on their own practice, being observed by mentees, working with different students in a different school, and broadening understanding of student learning enhanced their own teaching practice.

The benefit to me was greater than I had expected. Partly because I needed to reflect on my own practice, on what I’ve been doing for a long time in my own classroom for my own students. As soon as someone else is observing you, you question what you do and you reflect on it. (M3)

We were all learning. And when I made mistakes, I would own them as well, that’s part of the whole journey. (M2)

All three mentors have been involved in the mentoring program for many years. For example, M1 had mentored teachers in urban and regional areas in-person and remotely since the program’s inception. The mentors cited their passion for music education as the main reason for sharing their time and experience to equip classroom teachers with skills to teach music:

It’s a passion for music education, and the great belief that I know it’s so important for every child to be involved in music education. (M1)

I just would really like to see the program flourish. The advocacy for music education is still so vital and still we are not doing it well enough. We need to be able to get into the ears of the decision-makers, and get music back on the table. (M2)

Benefits of the whole-school music mentoring model for students: Principal perspectives

Prior to the mentoring program no music was taught at the school and singing along to CDs was the main music activity in the classrooms. The principal and another teacher participated in the program’s pilot in 2015 and were so impressed by the impact on children that over the next 3 years they mentored a number of teachers in the school. Outside mentors were brought in from 2019 to offer fresh perspectives, and 2022 saw the completion of the cycle where every single teacher at the school had undergone music mentoring.

The program provided teachers at the school with the skills and knowledge to implement music activities as “brain breaks” to re-focus students’ attention.

Music is waking up your brain and doing something different, just turning the lights on again. That’s what I find is really useful for the teachers to actually get student attention back. It’s a really easy circuit breaker in the classroom.

The principal felt that activating students through music helped them in other learning areas and enhanced literacy and numeracy outcomes.

Good aural training translates into better aptitude for phonics which you need in order to teach kids to learn to read in the first years of school.

Music impact is mostly around engagement and around keeping the children’s brains ready to take in all that highly academic stuff, like reading and numeracy.

Many children arrived at the school with no English but were happy to join in music games and singing. The principal reported that participation in music activities shortened their non-verbal period, increased their personal confidence, and improved understanding of phonics.

This child came to us with absolutely no English but was happy to sing and perform in front of people. The confidence that music fosters means children who come to us with no English use their voice much sooner than they would otherwise.

For students with learning difficulties, music helped to regulate mood, and aural training assisted students with disabilities.

We have a number of kids this year with autism spectrum disorder. And music really seems to cut through for them. Whether they’re suffering from lack of attention, they always manage to find something in music that captures their attention.

Last year we had a little girl who was struggling with reading and was dyslexic. We tried some aural training one-on-one and some singing. The aural training made such a difference, the transition was amazing for her.

Thanks to the ongoing commitment to the program, extra-curricular music activities at the school flourished: after-school piano lessons are now full, and parents want violin lessons for their children. The principal believed that music mentoring contributed to the doubling of enrolments, growing from 60 students in 2015 to 120 in 2022.

Discussion

After the pilot implementation in 2015, the principal became convinced of the music mentoring program’s benefits. They made a decision to commit annual funds for at least two teachers to participate in music mentoring every year, which led to a completion of the mentoring program by the entire teaching staff in 2022. The importance of a school principal’s support for music education, including personal and financial support for purchase of instruments and staff attendance of professional development, was highlighted by De Vries (2015), and overall institutional support has been identified as a key factor in effective teacher mentoring (Hobson, 2017).

Interviewed teachers reported limited experience in music and lack of confidence in teaching music prior to mentoring. This issue has been identified in a large survey of pre-service teachers in five countries (Russell-Bowie, 2009). Instead of a passive music listening approach previously utilised in their classrooms, teachers in the mentoring program gained confidence to sing in front of children and teach musical concepts. Singing was central to music education practices in another Australian primary school where teachers focused on “good singing practice” (De Vries 2015, p. 215). Barrett et al. (2019) also reported increased teacher confidence in singing and teaching music.

In the program reported here, three very experienced music mentors worked with teachers at the school over 7 years. They built positive relationships with teachers, based on mutual respect and trust. Hobson (2017) identified relational trust as a factor contributing to effective teacher mentoring. Music mentoring lasted two school terms for each teacher, with contact between mentors and mentees continuing post-program. Lamont et al. (2012) similarly highlighted the value of long-term, sustainable relationships between music teachers and school teachers as an essential element for a successful whole-class vocal tuition intervention in the United Kingdom. Ibbotson and See (2021) reported that teachers valued regular meetings with mentors, feedback, and support with practical ideas. Research has highlighted the importance of regular and sustained contact between mentors and mentees as an important factor in teacher mentoring, rather than brief intensive immersion in off-site professional development courses (Hobson, 2017).

The mentors assessed teachers’ abilities and developed music activities around their strengths, their student cohorts, and in situ resources. The importance of developing music activities relevant to the local context was emphasised by Bautista et al. (2019) who demonstrated that teachers needed assistance in locating resources that facilitate teaching of the music curriculum and making connections to other areas of the curriculum. Mentors and mentees collaborated in co-constructing musical activities, resulting in collaborative self-development (Barrett et al., 2019; Kemmis et al., 2014).

Mentoring strategies included demonstrating music teaching in the mentee’s classes, explaining musical concepts, and providing materials such as recordings, videos, lesson plans, and song books. A similar approach was described by Bautista et al. (2019) where video examples of music teaching were utilised during professional development to demonstrate effective lesson design and application of teaching strategies in a real classroom. The importance of modelling effective teaching has been emphasised by research (Malderez, 2024).

Constructive feedback, ongoing support and self-reflection helped teachers gain confidence in a gradual handover from mentor to teacher as teachers became empowered to teach music. Such approaches have been identified as appropriate mentoring strategies (Hobson, 2017), with support being highlighted as an essential element in mentoring teachers (Malderez, 2024). Practical activities and feedback given after activities were appreciated by the participants in a European summer school program (Biasutti et al., 2015).

One of the important insights for teachers in the current program was that music can be incorporated into everyday teaching as transitions between lessons and as “brain breaks” for children. This approach changed the classroom atmosphere, with teachers reporting that children were constantly breaking into song while doing other learning activities. The use of music in the morning was viewed as activating students for learning throughout the day. De Vries (2015) documented similar approaches in a suburban Australian primary school where whole-class singing featured at the start of a school day, with teachers and students sitting in a circle and singing songs, keeping beat, and clapping rhythms. Similarly, primary students in the United States indicated their preference for active music learning in the classroom (Hanson, 2023). Barrett et al. (2019) described how music mentoring led to the integration of music into daily school life, lesson transitions, and school culture.

In this school many students come from non-English-speaking, Arabic and Mongolian backgrounds. The whole-school approach to music mentoring led to shortening of a 9-month silent period that was reported to be typical for children with no English at the school. Joining in musical games and learning English through songs resulted in greater engagement in language, increased student participation, creativity, and motivation in other curriculum areas such as literacy and numeracy. In their research, Ibbotson and See (2021) also reported a positive impact of music mentoring on children’s language development and engagement in learning and participation, particularly for children from non-English-speaking backgrounds.

In addition to multiple benefits for children, teachers reported being motivated to continue professional learning in music, with many teachers interested in refresher music workshops and one becoming a music teacher in a K–6 regional school. This aligns with reports from an intensive European summer school where a learner-centred program focused on training primary generalist classroom teachers to teach music supported their “professional development, team work, curriculum design, confidence development and personal development” (Biasutti et al., 2015, p. 155).

Mentors also recognised the benefits of mentoring for their own teaching, reflecting on their own practice, summarising a large amount of music curriculum content in an accessible manner, working in a different school with different children, sharing their passion for music, and bringing the joy of music to children. Ibbotson and See (2021) likewise reported that “music specialist mentors had gained an enormous amount from being part of a team that was learning ‘on the job,’ developing their own pedagogy through this embodied approach and also discovering ways of supporting teachers and students” (p. 24).

Conclusions and implications

While the findings of this study are limited to a particular K–2 school, the teacher, mentor, and principal perspectives documented here highlight the positive impacts of music mentoring in a whole-school approach. The process of incorporating music activities across the entire school has been reported by De Vries (2015) via an off-site professional development and Garrett (2019) through an internal music program without music educator input. While these initiatives resulted in positive outcomes, the present study shows that with additional help from a supportive school principal and expert music educators working in situ across an extended period of time as mentors, music mentoring can effect positive change in early and primary education and help young children flourish regardless of their socioeconomic background and language. Furthermore, the sustained and situated nature of the mentoring program has provided impactful professional learning for teachers that has had a transformative effect on their classroom practice, and, for one teacher in this study, a new career path as a specialist music teacher in another setting.

The study represents a positive example of how sustained, situated mentoring can drastically improve music teaching where school leadership and resourcing work together to enable growth. The whole-school mentoring approach is potentially more effective than previous interventions because it embeds the practice of music teaching across the entire school community as a shared community of practice, instead of benefiting only a small number of teachers and their students (De Vries, 2015; Lave & Wenger, 1991). It is hoped that these teachers will continue teaching music with new student cohorts, resulting in ongoing and sustainable music education. To ensure longevity of music teaching at the school, ongoing principal and peer support are needed, including financial support for equipment and teacher relief time to continue development of their music teaching skills.

We advocate that state and national governments and policymakers should consider implementing whole-school music mentoring approaches across early-childhood and primary education as an effective means of providing music education for children, having a significant positive impact on children’s development and academic achievements, and expanding teachers’ portfolios of skills in a situated setting of relevant practice. Furthermore, the substantial impact on language development for non-English-speaking pupils in this setting represents an important contribution and is particularly relevant in the multi-cultural context of Australian society.