Count Me In!: Resources for Making Music Inclusively with Children and Young People with Learning Difficulties

This engaging, practical resource sets out twelve original projects for making music inclusively with children and young people of all ages who have special abilities or needs, including those with profound and multiple learning difficulties, those on the autism spectrum, those who have a vision or hearing impairment, and those with social, emotional, and mental health needs.

Created by leaders in the music and special needs field working with music industry professionals, Count Me In! includes projects with a wide range of musical styles and genres, and there is an accompanying website with hundreds of freely downloadable audio files. The resource is based on the Sounds of Intent framework, which encourages teachers and others to target activities at their pupils’ and students’ particular levels of musical development. The pieces of music are ‘deconstructed’ into separate activities that are individually targeted at sound-makers, pattern-makers, motif-makers and song-makers so that all young people can join in at the same time.

Count Me In! is a must-have resource for class teachers, teaching assistants and other non-music-specialist staff supporting children with learning difficulties in special and mainstream schools and colleges, as well as musicians from music services, music hubs and other arts organisations who visit schools. It can be used without needing to be able to read music, though there are scores in simplified and standard notation, as well as chord charts.