LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL was filled with the sound of children’s voices on 25 April, as head teachers and music leads from across the diocese gathered, with representatives from 26 primary schools, for the inaugural Schools Singing Programme (SSP) conference. The day was a celebration of a growing diocesan commitment to high-quality choral-music education — and a powerful reminder of the transformative part that choral singing can play in young lives.
A moment of wonder came mid-morning, when 90 children, drawn from the cathedral’s partner schools, processed into the space beneath Helios, a vast, luminous installation suspended high in the nave. Their performance — joyful, confident, and visibly moving — brought many delegates to tears. For those who had worked to bring this musical miracle into being, the moment was quietly historic: here were a new generation of singers, many from some of the most deprived communities in the country, lifting their voices in one of England’s great sacred spaces.
FOUNDED in 2012, the Liverpool Cathedral SSP is a curriculum-based initiative that brings specialist choral-music education to state primary schools across the Liverpool City region (liverpoolcathedral.org.uk). It is led by a dedicated team of cathedral musicians under the direction of Stephen Mannings, with choral outreach spearheaded by Mitch Holland. Together, they offer weekly, curriculum-aligned singing workshops, working with more than 1000 pupils each year in a bid to revive and democratise the English choral tradition.
At the heart of the programme lies a bold theological and civic vision: that sacred music, long associated with exclusivity and ecclesiastical privilege, can be a vehicle for inclusivity, empowerment, and human flourishing. “We’re not here to replicate the choir-school model,” Mr Mannings has said, “but to extend the beauty of cathedral music to children who might never otherwise encounter it.” Unlike traditional cathedral choirs, whose intake is often drawn from independent schools, Liverpool’s SSP deliberately focuses on schools in areas of economic deprivation, seeking to close the gap in access to cultural and musical opportunity.
In my academic post, I have recently completed a comprehensive research evaluation of the SSP. Conducted during the spring term of 2023, the study draws on nearly 300 children’s reflective choir journals; classroom observations; questionnaire data with parents and school staff, and interviews with senior clergy and musicians.
My findings show that choral participation offers significant educational, cultural, social, and well-being benefits for children — particularly those in socio-economically disadvantaged contexts. They reveal not only enhanced musical literacy and academic engagement, but also increased confidence, emotional resilience, and a growing sense of belonging among children who have, many of them, been historically excluded from such experiences.
MY RESEARCH illuminates the layered value of singing: as cognitive stimulation; as social glue; as a means of cultural enfranchisement. Children reported pride in learning complex repertoire, including music in Ukrainian, and songs associated with royal occasions, and with Eurovision. Teachers observed improvements in concentration, reading skills, and emotional expression. Parents noted a renewed joy in their children, who began singing at home and in queues at school.
In schools where instrumental tuition had become financially or logistically unfeasible, singing re-entered the curriculum as a cost-effective, socially engaging alternative. For some children, the programme has been nothing short of life-changing.
This was affirmed by the final panel of the SSP Conference, in which two primary-school heads shared their experiences. Linda Lord, head teacher at Knowsley Lane Primary School, spoke movingly of her pupils’ awe on entering the cathedral for the first time. “They said it felt magical,” she reflects. “For children who may have never stepped inside such a building, singing there offered a moment of wonder. And when they began to sing without the booklets — something that would have terrified them a year ago — they stood a little taller.”
THE programme has changed her school’s relationship with music. “It’s now part of the everyday. Children sing in the lunch queue. One of our SEND [special educational needs and disabilities] pupils visualises their daily timetable through song.”
The impact has extended to staff, as well. “I can’t genuinely say whether it’s the children or the teachers enjoying it more,” Ms Lord says. “Having enthusiastic specialists coming in has inspired our staff to reimagine what’s possible. We’ve even considered pausing instrumental tuition to focus on singing, because the benefits are so widespread.”
Rob Simpson, head of Norman Pannell Primary School, in Netherley — another area of high deprivation — echoes these sentiments. “Before the SSP, our children had very little cultural exposure. Now, they count down the days to their singing workshops. Mitch brings energy, consistency, and joy. Two of our boys have even become choristers in the professional choir. Their families are bursting with pride.”
Mr Simpson recounts how, at a recent Easter performance, the school hall was “packed with parents, most of whom would never normally engage. But there they were — phones out, tears in their eyes.” Music, he says, has moved from the margins of the curriculum to its heart.
THE programme’s shift towards a curriculum-led model has further embedded it in schools’ educational frameworks. Aligned with the National Plan for Music Education, and SIAMS (Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools), the SSP includes learning outcomes in pitch, rhythm, notation, and ensemble skills. Its success lies not merely in ticking boxes, however, but in the intangible moments: when a shy child sings solo for the first time; when a classroom erupts in spontaneous song; when a parent, long disengaged from school life, comes to a concert and sees their child differently.
Beneath Helios, the children’s voices soared. The glowing orb above them — cosmic, symbolic, radiant — seemed to echo their songs of light, belonging, and hope. In an era when arts funding is under threat, when music is too often squeezed out by curricular pressures, Liverpool Cathedral’s SSP stands as a model of what is possible when vision, pedagogy, and community coalesce.
It is a reminder that cathedrals are not merely repositories of tradition, but living institutions with the power to transform society, one voice at a time.
Dr Simone Krüger Bridge is Professor of Cultural Musicology at Liverpool John Moores University. profiles.ljmu.ac.uk