Now in its third year, Warwick Schools Foundation Future Fwd is a conference which asks a straightforward question: how should we all best support and enable current and future generations of pupils to make a positive impact as activities citizens, in the communities where they both live and work"
The conference approaches the answer by separating out what we know to be some of the key challenges: the narrowness of the taught curriculum; the skills shortage as reported by business and industry; the growing impact of technology, not least AI; inclusion in both schools and the workforce; and access to cultural and artistic experiences.
This year, we have dedicated two speaker streams to culture and the arts, looking specifically at singing for wellbeing, music partnerships, and innovative instrumental programmes. Why, you may ask, do we consider cultural and musical experiences – which are hardly novel or new in and of themselves – to be so important in equipping young learners"  Picture: Victoria Jane Photography.
If we need to analyse why a grounding in music is important, we have only to look at some of the key skills we know are of increasing importance in the job market: team-work, problem-solving, resilience, creativity; and whilst all these skills can be developed through other media, music brings them out in quite different ways. There is, for example, a different sense of team in an orchestra or choir to that on the football pitch.
Music is a...