Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

We have seen a very positive effect on the culture of the school. We find that music is better organised when we are
part of the school (not separate). The children have more time and it is more popular with parents.
It has a very positive social effect. It is not just in music either but in
many things. The children here are not shy. They are more confident and creative and I would say there has been a
positive influence on the whole system. Pupils and teachers show more initiative.
We have also noticed that those children who take the additional private music lessons are the best pupils. They
achieve the best and there is not any negative effect from them missing time in school to go to music lessons. I can
see only positive benefits.
We have a school of musicians, they concentrate more as audiences, they are happy to be creative and communicate.
The atmosphere and culture of the school is good. I wish more pupils would continue into the private music lessons
though. Only around half the pupils do.
I would say culture is the spine of the school. Not only the music school, but also the after school youth centre. I
would like to do more in the other art forms. Drama and dance is done a bit, but only in music lessons. Then it is
mainly traditional dances. We do offer quite a few cultural electives for older pupils and these are always very
popular.
Years 7-10 do a musical theatre performance once a year. We get a professional Director to work with the pupils. We
also try to organise visits about 3-4 times a year of orchestras or jazz ensembles. Children with special needs are
integrated into all lessons. Percussion works especially well with special needs pupils. I notice they have a high degree
of concentration when they play. When we do more of the arts in school, it encourages more children to go to after
school music (less than 10% of our pupils attend after school music but this is slowly improving).
We saw music school numbers improve when the music school started to come and teach in the school. The violin
teacher comes here once or twice a week. The children go to music lessons during school time and this has really
encouraged them. We have not seen any negative effects. Grades 1 and 2 all come together to play the flute. The
music teacher has taught them the recorder.
While general opinion supports the view that music schools should be integrated into the
compulsory school, the official position of the Icelandic Musician’s Union (FIH) is that the
standard of music education is much better in the ‘special’ music school. They argue that in
general, the facilities and conditions in the compulsory school are inferior to the conditions in
the music school. While they acknowledge there are good and bad sides to music being located
on a separate site or as part of a school, the overall view is one that feels that the administration
and facilities are better in music schools and that, “The music school principles and environment
must be maintained”. They argue further, “There are too many conflicts when music is in the
school. It will always be a problem. The atmosphere in schools is not right.” They concede
though that a well-designed music ‘annex’ attached to schools may be a good compromise as it
could capture the best elements of both systems. They give an example, “We have a project with
a public school. In this school only one pupil was playing, but now 200 pupils are playing, but
ironically this programme has just had the funding removed. The FIH also cautions, “The concern
in our profession is that things start to change and then there is a tendency for everything to
shift downhill. This is the experience when we look at what has happened in some of our
neighbouring countries. We have a fear of the system being watered down. The association
further argues that if music teachers are placed in compulsory schools, they become “isolated
and find it difficult.” They suggest that for music in schools to work, at least 2 teachers would
need to be placed together in a school. They contend that any placements of music teachers in
compulsory school should not be instead of music schools but rather as an addition to the
current system.
Other music schools are considering closer ties with the compulsory schools but feel that
there are a number of obstacles to overcome for this to be really successful, as the following
comment exemplifies:
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