Taking over Pier 2/3 in Walsh Bay on Monday 22 July, the inaugural The Music in Me Summit will bring together primary teachers for an immersive day of professional development focused on music education.

The summit is a significant step in addressing the need for in-person professional learning opportunities in music, says Bernie Heard, the national manager of the Music in Me teacher mentoring program. It specifically targets teachers in the primary schooling sector who may not be music specialist but are charged with delivering music opportunities for students.

Music in Me. Photo © Brett Scapin

“We’ve arrived at a point in our teacher training in New South Wales where a student teacher might get access to just eight hours of music training in their entire four-year degree – and more often than not, that is delivered by a non-music specialist,” says Heard.

“It might be delivered by someone in dance or visual arts and just touch on music very briefly – and that’s in some of the more enlightened situations. We now have a generational, urgent issue in that we have a whole generation of teachers who going into primary schools...