This is a guest blog by an Enterprise Marketplace Partner
Music EdTech start-up Practice Pal and iSAMS have teamed up to solve a problem experienced by the majority of iSAMS customers: managing students’ instrumental music lessons.
Music lesson management is much like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Because instrumental lessons are organised outside of the regular academic timetable, it is often a struggle to fit them in. This causes a number of administrative challenges that prevent students from reaching their full musical potential. Having taught music for nearly 20 years, Practice Pal Founder and CEO Ross Garrod recognised the need for an urgent answer. The company has built an
award-winning platform that creates unprecedented synergy between music departments and schools, with the ultimate goal of helping students find joy in learning music.
What sets Practice Pal apart is that it addresses the concerns of every stakeholder in music education: schools, teachers, parents, and of course, students. Because instrumental lessons occur outside of the regular curriculum, they need to be rotated with all of a student’s academic lessons in order to avoid missing too much of any one subject. As many music departments use spreadsheets or a manually-updated music lesson notice board to organise this, academic subject teachers are often unaware their students have a music lesson until they ask to leave (and it is not unheard of for students to forget to go to their music lessons either). This confusion not only causes tension between departments, but poses a serious safeguarding risk should staff not have full awareness of where a student is—or should be—at all times.
Fortunately, Practice Pal addresses these problems and more by artfully bridging the gap between music departments and schools. Its comprehensive suite of tools modernises the way music departments organise lessons, peripatetic teachers, and parent communications. This not only fosters a more enjoyable learning experience for everyone involved, but helps music departments integrate with the wider school by making their lessons, timetables, and learner details instantly shareable. What’s more, a seamless integration between Practice Pal and iSAMS allows academic teachers, data managers, and SLTs using iSAMS to receive relevant information from the music department without creating a Practice Pal account.
By improving—and in some cases, establishing for the very first time—two-way communication between music departments and the rest of the school, Practice Pal and iSAMS are supporting elevated standards in arts education that will impact student attainment for generations to come.
To learn more, please contact us or visit practicepalmusic.com