About

Music: Count Us In

It’s Australia’s biggest school music initiative. With support from The Australian Government, it has run since 2007 and is all about celebrating the value of music education to students’ development, whoever they are, wherever they are. It involves about half a million students, teachers - and often parents! – from schools all over Australia signing up to  learn, rehearse then perform the same song, on the same day, at the same time.   

Music: Count Us In is for all schools, primary schools and high schools, State and independent schools, nationwide. It doesn’t cost anything for schools to participate and all the support materials, including song charts and arrangements and classroom activity kits are freely available and downloadable. 

What’s the performance date for this year?

11.30 am, Thursday September 1st Australia will stop as even more students and school communities pick up their instruments and perform the program song together.

Who’s behind Music: Count Us In?

It is run by the Music Council of Australia’s national campaign to get more Aussies – in schools AND communities - making music, called Music: Play for Life, with funding from The Australian Government. The MCA is a non-government, not-for-profit peak body for music and is a registered charity.

Why is Music: Count Us In needed?

This goes back to late 2005 when the federally-funded National Review of School Music Education was handed down. The Review found that lots of Aussie students miss out on meaningful music education in schools. It said that we needed to lift the status of music in schools, to remind teachers, parents, principals, kids and the community about the VALUE and BENEFITS in learning music. 

What are those benefits?

Decades of research shows that learning music can help students’ self-confidence, self-discipline, team work, it can help to re-engage in school  those students who might have lost interest, can improve school attendance and can even help students make healthy life choices. PLUS there are strong links between music learning and academic skills in literacy and numeracy. Research shows that music is UNIQUE in its flow-on benefits to students who learn it.

Don’t all schools already teach students music?

Not really, no. The key with meaningful music learning, as the Review says, is that it has to be ‘continuous, sequential and developmental’ for students to benefit. We know, for example, that as few as 23% of government schools are able to offer their students a music education which fits that bill - they would like to, but they lack the resources. In private schools, the number leaps up to 88%. The numbers vary greatly from State to State, but that ‘23% compared with 88%’ statistic reflects the national average. Music: Count Us In is about saying that ALL kids deserve, and can benefit from, music.

What needs to happen to fix things?

The Review made many recommendations. It said the first step is to put music on the map in Australian schools, by explaining to the community its importance. That’s what ‘Music. Count Us In’ is about: it’s not only a huge celebration of music in our schools, it’s also a way to spotlight the UNIQUE benefits to all Aussie students in learning music at school and to remind teachers, principals, parents and politicians that music should be central to EVERY student’s education. 

The Australian Government has agreed to include the Arts in the next phase of the new National Curriculum. That’s a good step, but it’s important that sufficient resources are provided to roll out any changes, including for more teacher training.

More about music benefits here.

Read about last year's program song

Read about 2009's program song