Professional Mentorship Comes to State Schools

The Resonance Network was founded on a straightforward observation: that access to professional musicians as mentors is almost exclusively available to children at independent schools. State school students with genuine musical talent are developing in isolation — without the guidance, the exposure to professional environments, or the knowledge of application routes that could transform a passion into a career.

Our grant of £78,000 enabled the Network to expand from three to twelve partner secondary schools across the East Midlands, embedding a structured mentorship programme in which professional musicians committed to one day per month per school over two academic years. Each mentor was matched with up to six students based on instrument, genre, and aspiration.

The outcomes extended well beyond the mentorship sessions themselves. The Network organised three residential workshops at the Royal Northern College of Music, allowing students to experience conservatoire culture first-hand. A bursary fund, also supported by our grant, enabled forty students to sit conservatoire entrance auditions who otherwise could not have afforded the travel and administration costs.

Eleven students from the programme have since received conservatoire offers, and a further twenty-three have taken up places on foundation or access courses at music colleges. The Network now operates in seventeen schools and has received additional funding from Arts Council England, leveraged in part by the evidence base built during the grant period.