Through its Organs in Schools initiative, the RCO places instruments in state schools and institutions supporting state education throughout the UK.
The scheme, which grew out of the #InspiringOrganists project (see below), identifies and supports schools where a lack of a suitable instrument is hampering an existing or planned music education programme.
With generous support from sponsors including The Garfield Weston Trust, The Worshipful Company of Plaisterers, The United Grand Lodge of England, and private donors, the College is able to donate high-quality digital organs from our partners at Viscount Organs.
The instruments can be installed in classroom, practice or performance spaces, and used to further the education of a new, and socially diverse, generation of organists.
To register your interest in the Organs In Schools programme, please download and complete this application form. The form, or any questions you may have about the scheme, should be sent in the first instance to RCO Chief Executive Sir Andrew Parmley at andrew.parmley@rco.org.uk
“The new organ has been the basis of many discussions … as students spotted this wonderful instrument. Pupils – not merely those learning the organ – asked questions about how it works and what sounds it makes, leading to cross-curricular learning at its best, involving music, creativity, science and history.”
- Matthew Lond, Director of Music at The King’s School, Grantham
The schools which have so far received a Viscount Organs digital instrument through the Organs in Schools programme are:
Responding to an increasing body of evidence that today’s children are less likely to experience the organ in its traditional home – places of worship – the College has sought ways to take the organ to where the children are – schools.
Tom Daggett, OBE Organ Outreach Fellow at St Paul’s Cathedral, had been using digital organs for school assemblies and workshops for a number of years, allowing children from all backgrounds to see, hear and play the instrument for the very first time. Inspired by other existing models in York and Leeds, Tom and two RCO regional directors, Simon Williams and Tom Bell, began to think about the next step – organ lessons for individual children.
Under the banner #InspiringOrganists, the programme grew to provide organ lessons to students in Hackney and Islington. Key to the success of the project were some long-term loan instruments provided to the schools, which not only enabled students to practise more and consequently make more rapid progress, but also generated wider interest.
The RCO’s Organs in Schools scheme was launched in 2021 to build on this insight, securing funding for instruments in schools wherever there is the infrastructure and potential for the development of organ playing and musicianship. In its first year the programme sited instruments in more than a dozen schools, and there are plenty more in the pipeline. Ultimately the College hopes to work with the support of funding partners to provide an organ to every school which is able to incorporate it into a programme of music education – perhaps as many as 700 instruments across the UK!
“We have students that have lessons at the church but have found that practice can sometimes be challenging for them. Now that we have the organ at school, they have access to it during break and lunchtimes. I am hoping to organise a taster session in the Summer term to show off this great instrument and to give other students the opportunity to learn it. It will also allow us to showcase the talents of organists at our concerts… We are very much looking forward to incorporating this great instrument into the musical life of the school.”
- Vicky Garrett, Kesteven & Grantham Girls’ School