Points of Contact: Researching new resources and strategies for teaching and learning music notation in tactile form for blind children using the Soun

Blind children in the UK are currently unable to access music education in schools in the same way that their sighted peers do, due to a lack of resources, teaching and learning strategies, and expertise among teachers. In particular, there is currently no tactile equivalent for the way that music is represented in primary music curricula, using symbols and letters, and no developmentally-informed strategies for teaching the system of braille music that does exist for more advanced students. Working with The Amber Trust, the sole UK-wide charity that supports visually impaired children and young people in their pursuit of music, the School of Education at the University of Roehampton will host a collaborative studentship to research this area for the first time, working with teachers, pupils and blind musicians to create new resources, test new strategies and evaluate the results. The research will have enormous impact on blind children and young people studying within and outside school. It will inform the content and design of new materials that The Amber Trust will make freely available blind pupils, students and their teachers.