Royal Blind School takes centre stage at global music conference

Tuesday March 10 2015

The Royal Blind School is today (Tuesday) sharing the school’s approach to music education with an international audience at the first major conference to explore visually impaired musicians' lives.

At the two day conference in London, music teacher Louisa Maddison will discuss music education for children and young people with a visual impairment. Delegates in the 200 strong audience will include academics, researchers, visually impaired musicians, representatives of the music industry and organisations working in the field of visual impairment from around the globe.

The Royal Blind School is the only UK based school to have a speaker at this unique event.

The conference forms part of a two year research project exploring the experiences of visually impaired musicians, led by Dr David Baker at the UCL Institute of Education in London. The research was initially focussed solely on adults, but was extended to include the musical education of children from 5 years upwards, after Dr David Baker spent a day at the Royal Blind School and observed the wide range of classes being taught there.

Louisa Maddison has ten years’ experience teaching music at the Royal Blind School. In her contribution, Ms Maddison will focus on pupil-centred approaches to music making with children who have multiple disabilities as well as visual impairment, including best practice use of access technologies, multi-sensory and experiential music making activities.

A spokesperson for Royal Blind said:

“Music is a life-enhancing activity and an important part of the curriculum at the Royal Blind School. We have some really talented musicians within our ranks, but our classes are tailored to meet the individual needs of each and every one of our pupils.

“Using a wide range of musical instruments, access technologies and the specialised skills of our staff, we make sure all pupils can experience music-making as independently as possible.”

For more information contact

Una Purdie
Royal Blind Marketing Department
Tel 0131 229 1456 

Notes to editors:

Further information on the conference: http://vimusicians.ioe.ac.uk/confer_train.html  

Abstract and biography information on Louisa Maddison: http://vimusicians.ioe.ac.uk/abstracts1.html#Maddison

• The Royal Blind School is a national grant aided special school that educates and cares for pupils who are blind or have a visual impairment, as well as those with additional support needs. www.royalblind.org/education

• The Royal Blind School is part of Royal Blind, a registered charity that runs services for blind and partially sighted people. Our vision at Royal Blind is to make a significant contribution to building a community in which blind and partially sighted people, including those who also have other disabilities, are fully included and lead fulfilling lives. www.royalblind.org

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