Jennie Henley
Director of Programmes
PhD, MMus, BA(Hons), PGCE, PGCFHE, FHEA
Email: [email protected]
Director of Programmes and Professor in Music Education. Strategic leadership for the academic portfolio, including responsibility for:
- undergraduate, postgraduate taught and junior programmes of study;
- learning, teaching and assessment including curriculum design and development;
- access and participation;
- academic staff development.
An internationally-renowned expert in music pedagogy and educational strategist, Professor Jennie Henley has as taught and led music in various contexts for over 25 years. Her experience spans instrumental teaching, ensemble direction, class teaching, workshop leading and teacher education. She has worked with children, young people and adults and has a rich tapestry of practice crossing music education and community music, often working in challenging and complex settings. As an educational leader, she has designed innovative music education programmes, including distance learning and continuing professional development, and developed and led educational strategy.
A member of the Executive Team at the RNCM with responsibility for the Education Strategy, Access and Participation and the Academic Portfolio, her external work includes Quality Assessor for the Office for Students, Chair of the Greater Manchester Civic Universities Board and board member of the Greater Manchester Higher board.
Jennie is a Professor in Music Education with a research specialism in the relationship between pedagogy and inclusion. Her research has public impact and she has attracted funding from a variety of funders including AHRC, ACE, Comenius and she is regularly engaged as a consultant for international and national education design and evaluation work. She has held key research leadership roles and has an extensive publications profile. Her unique combination of strategic thinking and vision development, with the creative and lateral thinking that being a musician brings, is grounded in a deep experience in teaching and underpinned by her research.
Current and Future Research
Jennie Henley’s research interests surround the relationship between pedagogy and inclusion. Jennie is currently undertaking two research projects. The first, Artists Care, explores the ways that charitable organisations fund, structure and manage care and supervision for artists working in challenging and complex settings. Phase 1 involved a Rapid Evidence Assessment of professions outside of music in order to understand the ways care and supervision are structured within health and social care professions. Funded by Arts Council England and The Lightbulb Trust, phase 2 is currently underway. This involves detailed ethnographies of three charitable organisations that provide music programmes and projects within criminal justice, detention and challenging community settings. The ethnographies include an evaluation of the organisation structures and strategies for supporting artists and how they support artists in sustaining careers in challenging contexts. The third phase will involve the application of the findings of the Rapid Evidence Assessment to the Ethnographies in order to design a large Scale Action Research project that will involve the design of three Artists Care programmes to suit each charitable organisation.
Jennie’s second research project explores partnership working as a way to address barriers to music education for young people in hard to reach areas. As part of the five-year RNCM Engage West Cumbria project, funded by the Benny Walker Charitable Trust, the research programme will seek to understand the ways in which a conservatoire (the RNCM) and a music hub (Cumbria Music Hub) are working in partnership to address barriers identified in previous research (Henley and Barton, 2022). The project has three workstreams: raising attainment, progression, and workforce development. The five-year research programme has two strands: process and impact evaluation to understand how far the musical activities achieved their objectives and how activity design has addressed the identified barriers to music education, and a longitudinal ethnographical research study to understand the complexities of partnership working in developing a musical community that meets local need.
Research Areas
Inclusive pedagogy
Music Education
Community Music
External Research Roles
2023 – current: Editor, Frontiers in Psychology special topic ‘Women in Performance Science’
2020-23: Senior Editor, ISME-Routledge Book Series ‘Global Issues in Music Education
2017-23: Member of Editorial Board, International Journal of Community Music
2015-23: Review Panel, Music Education Research
2016-19: Member of Review Panel, Research in Music Education (RIME) international conference
2017: Scientific Committee, Music and Social Impact Conference, GSMD July 2017
2012-15: Member of Editorial board, British Journal of Music Education
Research Funding
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Comenius
Arts Council England (ACE)
Undergraduate Teaching
- Music in Context 2: Education Strand Tutor
Postgraduate Teaching
- Practical Pedagogy: Module Leader
- Dissertation supervision
Research Supervision
- Kayayan, N. The Dynamics of Dynamic Teaching and Learning: Engaging Students as Partners in UK Conservatoire Piano Departments.
- Hartley, J. Critical Creativity: listening to and composing new music. (completed)
- Shaw, L. Facilitating the transition from conservatoire student to professional through instrumental teacher education (completed)
- Mallia, S. Connecting Music Education: Understanding policy and practice in the context of a recently launched educational framework in Malta. (completed)
- Lam, G. A Process of Becoming: Developing Community Music Practice in Hong Kong. (completed)
- Barton, D. Beyond Closed Doors: Private Music Teachers’ Perspectives on Why, How and What They Teach. (completed)
- Huang, W. An investigation into Taiwanese music college students self-management of musical performance anxiety. (completed)
- Aljabri, K. Exploring Strategies for Developing Western Classical Music Education in the Sultanate of Oman. (completed)
Selected Outputs
Written Outputs
Henley, J. (2024). ‘Education research, vulnerability and positionality: a story of the methodological journey of an education researcher in prisons’. in Caulfield, L. and Gardner, M. (eds.) Arts in Criminal Justice and Corrections: International perspectives on methods, journeys, and challenges. Routledge.
Henley, J. (2024). ‘Unlocking Musical Imaginations’. in G. Spruce and N. Beach (eds.) Instrumental Music Teaching: Issues and Challenges. London. TCL Press. 115-129.
Henley, J., & Barton, D. (2022). Time for Change? Recurrent barriers to music education. British Journal of Music Education, 39(2).
Henley, J., & Parks, J. (2020). The pedagogy of a prison and community music programme: Spaces for conflict and safety. International Journal of Community Music, 13(1), 7-27. doi:10.1386/ijcm_00008_1
Henley, J., & Higgins, L. (2020). Redefining Excellence and Inclusion. International Journal of Community Music, 13(2), 207-16. doi:10.1386/ijcm_00020_1
Henley, J. (2018). Music, Emotion, and Learning In P. Gouk., J. Kennaway., J. Prins, & W. Thomählen (Eds.) The Routledge Companion to Music, Mind and Wellbeing: Historical and Scientific Perspectives . Routledge.
Henley, J. (2017). The Musical Lives of the Self-Confessed Non-Musician’ In The Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure (pp 203-22 ). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190244705.013.14
Henley, J. (2017). How musical are generalist primary student teachers?. Music Education Research, 19(4), 470-84. doi:doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2016.1204278
Henley, J. (2017). Young Offenders In A. King., E. Himonides., & A. Ruthmann.(Eds.) The Routledge Companion Music, Technology and Education (pp 193-208 ). Routledge.
Henley, J. (2015). Music: Naturally Inclusive, Potentially Exclusive? In J. Deppler., T. Loreman., R. Smith., & L. Florian.(Eds.) Inclusive Pedagogy Across the Curriculum (pp 161-86 ). Emerald.
Henley, J. (2015). Prisons and Primary Schools: using CHAT to analyse the relationship between developing identity, developing musicianship and transformative processes. British Journal of Music Education, 32(2), 123-41.
Henley, J. (2014). Musical learning and desistance from crime: the case of a “Good Vibrations” Javanese gamelan project with young offenders. Music Education Research, 17(1), 103-20.
Public Presentations
- Henley, J. (2024). ‘Artists Care: Sustaining music programmes in complex and challenging contexts through musicians’ supervision and care’. ISME biannual World Music Education conference, 2024. Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. 28 July – 2 August 2024.Henley, J. (2022). ‘RNCM Engage: addressing barriers to progression in music and driving change through educational research-driven strategy’. Royal Musical Association conference. University of Durham. 7-10 September, 2022.
Henley, J. (2022). ‘Pedagogy and Inclusion’. ISME biannual World Music Education conference, 2022, online. 17-22 July, 2022.
Henley, J. (2018). ‘A challenge to assumptions of the transformative power of music’. 3rd International SIMM-posium. Porto, Portugal. 19-20 May 2018.
Professional Activity
Jennie Henley provides consultancy and knowledge exchange for learning and teaching at both national and international levels. Her consultancy work has involved reviewing, designing and developing national curricula for music for countries including Malta, Kazakhstan, Egypt and Albania as well as for a large-scale network of international schools. She has worked on the development of public examinations within the UK, including syllabus design work for A-level and GCSE Music examinations, and has designed and developed numerous professional development courses and teaching qualifications. She is a Quality Assessor for the Office for Students and is an experienced external examiner and external reviewer, being engaged to conduct deep dive period reviews within Higher Education.
Jennie is currently Chair of the Greater Manchester Civic Universities Board, a member of the Greater Manchester Higher Board, a member of the AdvanceHE Pro-Vice Chancellors’ network and a member of the Conservatoires UK (CUK) Learning and Teaching Forum.
In order to keep her teaching practice current and fresh, she continues with a small amount of flute teaching.
