A collaborative arts partner, not a staffing agency
We help schools rebuild music provision, strengthen existing programmes, and develop sustainable musical cultures for the long term.
The problem we usually meet
Music rarely fails on its own
It fails because the person who held it together left, because nobody owns the arts across the school, because the budget is decided in isolation from the plan, or because the plan only ever lived in one head.
Rebuilding is not a matter of hiring a teacher. It means deciding what the school wants music to be in three years’ time, then sequencing the work so that each year is affordable and each gain survives a change of staff.
Where we help
Across the whole school year
Rebuilding music
Starting from very little: what to fund first, what to postpone, and how to show progress within a single school year.
Strengthening provision
For schools where music already works, the harder question of how to make it deeper and more distinctive.
Sustainable musical culture
Traditions, repertoire and events that recur every year until they belong to the school rather than to a teacher.
Artsmark guidance
Statement of commitment, action planning and case study support, mapped onto work already underway.
Arts Award support
Discover, Explore, Bronze and Silver, with adviser support and portfolios built from ordinary classroom work.
Staff CPD
Training aimed at the non-specialist: singing leadership, classroom management of instruments, and enough theory to teach with confidence.
How a partnership runs
Three stages, over about three years
Year one
Audit and stabilise
An honest baseline: provision, staffing, budget, uptake, enrichment and pupil voice. We then fix the thing that is costing the school most — usually consistency of teaching — before touching anything else. Governors get a short, readable position statement they can actually use.
Year two
Build and evidence
Curriculum and progression tightened, a first ensemble or choir established, performances scheduled into the school calendar rather than added to it. Artsmark and Arts Award work runs alongside, drawing its evidence from what is already happening.
Year three
Hand over
Staff confidence, documentation, repertoire and partnerships transferred to the school. Our involvement reduces by design. The measure of a successful partnership is how little of it depends on us by the end.
Position Little Larrikins as a collaborative arts partner: we sit alongside your leadership team, and we plan for the day we are no longer needed.
Let's talk about your school's musical life
Tell us where music sits in your school right now — thriving, patchy, or waiting to be rebuilt. We will tell you honestly what we would do first.