Programme structure
Overall structure
- There are 3 parts to the programme (outlined in detail below)
- You spend 2 consecutive teaching days a week engaging in workshops, seminars and supervision
- A day a week you will work on placement at a school, hospital, hospice, mental health centre or other centre. There are three placements during the course
- A day a week is allocated for private study
- You are expected to attend four residential weekends: two in London, two in Manchester.
Part One – one term (September to December)
Module 1: A fully integrated foundation module introduces:
- The core concepts of the Nordoff Robbins approach
- The practicalities of working in a professional environment.
During your placement you are apprenticed to an experienced music therapist. You may join or observe his or her sessions and even run your own sessions with guidance. You share the recordings of your practical work on teaching days. Time is set aside each week for supervision with your music therapist.
Part Two – three terms (January to December)
Module 2A - Music Therapy Competencies & Knowledge – equips you for the practice of music therapy including:
- Gaining and consolidating basic skills in communicative and social musicianship
- Learning to make productive use of supervision
- An introduction to key literature, resources and concepts relating to the Nordoff Robbins approach.
Module 2B – Professional Competencies and Knowledge – equips you to practise music therapy in a variety of contexts including:
- Effective liaison with other practitioners and professionals and working in varied types of organisation with different values
- Communicating your work effectively in different contexts and to different audiences
- Essential academic skills.
Module 2C – Music, Health, Society: Practical and Critical Perspectives – equips you with a broad practice-based understanding of how music therapy fits with other forms of provision, focusing on health, society and music including:
- Awareness of how music therapy fits with the broader arts and health spectrum
- Developing the skills to maintain, develop and extend music therapy in the ever-changing work environment
- Public policy relating to the arts and health
- Making use of different perspectives that are musical (e.g. from musicology or music psychology), psychosocial (e.g. from psychology and sociology) or health-related (e.g. from health studies).
During your year-long placement:
- A music therapist or other appropriate member of staff is assigned to look after you.
- You are expected to develop the ability to work independently, displaying initiative and clear thinking as to the value of musical opportunities within the setting
- You participate in weekly supervision sessions back at the teaching base
- Your work on placement will inform your growing grasp of the subject matter covered in the theoretical modules.
Part Three – two terms (January to June)
Part three is divided into three modules (3A, 3B and 3C), corresponding to those in part two. We expect your levels of understanding and competence to be significantly higher at this stage. To qualify you will need to demonstrate the skills and competencies you need to work as a professional music therapist, whether alone or as part of a team.
You are responsible for setting up your third placement in an environment where music therapy is not yet established. You will be well prepared for this and will have plenty of support. You can tailor it to your aspirations both in location and in client group. You have a real opportunity to demonstrate the value of music therapy and this often leads to offers of work post-qualification.
You participate in weekly supervision back at the teaching base and your experience in this new and often challenging environment will throw into relief many of the issues being covered across Modules 3A, 3B and 3C.
