Teachers of note
Myleene Klass and Aled Jones shine a light on Britain’s most inspirational music teachers
Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock
- Bill Borrows
Aled Jones presents on Classic FM 10.00am Monday to Friday; Myleene Klass presents Calm Classics 10.00pm Saturday and Friday. Add them to your collection
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It was one of the most memorable ad campaigns of the 1990s. In it a roll call of celebrities including John Cleese, Bob Hoskins, Joanna Lumley, Professor Stephen Hawking, Sir David Attenborough and Prime Minister Tony Blair stared into the camera and gave the name of a teacher fondly remembered by their famous and successful former pupils. The 1997 advert was called “No-One Forgets a Good Teacher” and was part of a £10 million recruitment drive for the Teacher Training Agency. It instantly resonated with millions of people who began casting their minds back to the teacher who had influenced or changed their own life for ever.
It also struck a chord with radio station Classic FM, which went on to launch the Music Teacher of the Year Awards in 1999. It has been running the initiative ever since, now in partnership with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM), Britain’s principal music-examinations body and global music education charity.
Myleene Klass, ex-student of Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music, has been a presenter with the station since 2006 and has one of her teachers to thank for turning her on to it. “I went to Guildhall at weekends but was at school in Great Yarmouth during the week,” the 48-year-old remembers. “I had this incredible teacher there called Daphne King and she was the one who said, ‘There’s this new classical radio station that’s going to be starting. You’ve got to hear it.’ It’s wild that I’ve now been presenting on it for 20 years.”
Aled Jones. BBC/CTVC/Paul Husband
Klass is from six generations of classical musicians. She can’t remember the first time she played the piano (“It was always just omnipresent”) and grew up listening to Wagner, Holst and Lehár played by her Austrian father. But in her teens, she found herself struggling with the Bach chorales that formed part of her A-level music studies. “The analytical side of things was difficult for me because I didn’t understand why I needed it. I was like, ‘I’m just going to go and play these songs and it’ll be fine.’ But Daphne sat me down and showed me the mathematics behind the Bach chorales. I soon realised that it’s the thing that sticks everything together.
“And that’s what these awards are about. They are for the people who show you a different way, shine a different light and put the skills together.”
Officially, the Music Teacher of the Year Awards exist to recognise members of the teaching profession who “inspire children to participate in music; widen access, particularly for pupils who might otherwise miss out; transform music provision in a school or community; demonstrate ambition, imagination and inclusive teaching, and serve as outstanding role models”. When I saw “No-One Forgets a Good Teacher”, I could think of three or four former teachers who helped shape my life, but not one of them taught music.At my school, the music lesson was generally regarded as a “doss”.
This news does not go down well with Aled Jones. The famous boy soprano who sang Walking in the Air in the mid-1980s and has been a Classic FM presenter since 2002 is having none of it. “I was probably the kid in the maths or chemistry lesson [who messed about and didn’t care],” says the 55-year-old. “I knew very early on that science wasn’t for me. I’m not saying for one minute that we get rid of maths. But how many times in my life have I used sin, cos and tan? Never. How often during the day do I hear music, or allow that music to seep into my soul and make life better? All the time.
They’ve given their lives to trying to make kids appreciate music
Aled Jones
“It’s not the subject that’s a ‘doss’. The subject is what the teacher makes it, and that’s the point of these awards. We’re celebrating these individuals because they are soul enhancers, especially the lifetime award teachers who people can vote for now. They’ve given their lives, day in, day out, to just trying to make kids appreciate music. It’s such a brilliant thing, and they deserve it massively.”
He cites three examples from his own backstory. There was his primary school headmaster Edward Morris Jones: “He’d come into any lesson like some wandering minstrel with his guitar, and there would be some song that would help us with our two-times tables, or how leaves grow on a tree.” Then there was Elsie Francis: “She used to play the harp, and I’d sing along with her and take part in little competitions and stuff. Without her, I wouldn’t have followed the path I did.” And at comprehensive school, there was his music teacher Annie Griffiths: “She had given her whole life, even back then, to teaching these unruly kids how important music was in life, and I got it straightaway.”
Joanna Lumley featured in the 1997 “No-One Forgets a Good Teacher” campaign. Teacher Training Agency
“We will be celebrating the teachers who have won awards, particularly the lifetime achievement award winner, at Classic FM Live in October,” adds Klass, who will be presenting the show from the Royal Albert Hall.
“But the other thing to mention is that the six winners will share a prize fund of £20,000-worth of musical instruments and equipment, thanks to the cruise line Viking. For kids at some places of education who cannot afford to spend that kind of money on the music department, that could be a real game changer.”
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To vote in Classic FM’s Music Teacher of the Year Awards with ABRSM, go to ClassicFM.com or Global Player from Monday 31 August
Authors
Bill Borrows
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