*POSTPONED* Wellbeing for Music Educators – in partnership with Soundcastle

This session has been postponed. We will announce a new date soon! Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

About the session:

Join us for a vital and reflective session led by Soundcastle, experts in grassroots community music and Mental Health First Aid Training, focusing on the wellbeing of music teachers and leaders across the education and creative sectors. Whether you’re a peripatetic teacher, a school-based music educator, a trainee or emerging music leader, or someone who supports teachers through a hub or organisation, this event is for you.

Teaching music is deeply rewarding, but it can also be isolating and demanding. This session will explore some of the unique challenges music educators face – particularly those working independently or across multiple settings – and offer space to consider what wellbeing looks like in a sustainable music education career.

Together, we’ll unpack themes such as:

• Isolation and connection: how to build and sustain meaningful professional networks
• A sense of belonging in fragmented or under-supported environments
• Advocacy and value: recognising your work, your worth, and how to champion music education in every space
• Creating space for self-care and collective care in a demanding profession

This will be a space for honest conversation, peer connection, and shared reflection. Through facilitated dialogue and group activity, Soundcastle will guide us in exploring how we care for ourselves and each other within our roles.

Who is this for?

• Music teachers
• Emerging and trainee music leaders
• Music education hub staff
• Youth music organisations
• Artists and practitioners working in educational or community music settings
• Anyone interested in supporting the wellbeing of those delivering music education

Whether you’re an early-career music leader, an experienced teacher, or someone supporting music educators across the sector, we invite you to take this time to pause, connect, and be part of an ongoing conversation about what a healthier, more supported music education sector could look like.

What to expect:

In this session, Music Educators will:

• Explore practical tools for stress recognition and managing boundaries when working with young people.
• Explore their sense of belonging in the music education sector.
• Forge new connections.
• Leave the session strategies to strengthen their resilience this term.

Session leaders:

Gail MacLeod – Creative Director and London Lead at Soundcastle 

Gail MacLeod is a musician, creative facilitator, community songwriter and coach.  She is a founder director of the award-winning charity Soundcastle.  As part of this dynamic artist and woman-led team, Gail has spent over a decade working to unite communities across London and the Southeast through captivating musical experiences, building dynamic music projects that enable people at all ages and stages of life to create imaginative and thought-provoking new music.  With an acute understanding of the barriers many face to life affirming creative activity, Soundcastle ignites musical communities with great care and understanding of the mental health challenges we face as a society, as music educators, arts practitioners and as excluded communities coming together to express the world we see around us.