As the second half of the Autumn term gets under way, Sutton Music Trust (SMT) continues to strive to help every young person in the borough to make, be inspired by, and celebrate the music they love. We value, appreciate, and seek out the opinions of all children and young people of Sutton. This helps us ensure we keep the youth voice at the heart of our mission and the centre of everything we do.
Every year we send out our youth voice survey, What Music Means to You, to students in years 6, 7, and 8 via their school. In the survey, we ask what types of music the students like, how well they feel their school caters to their musical interests, how much they make music, and in what form.
This helps us understand more about children and young people’s musical preferences, their exposure to music education, and what our key focus areas might be for increasing student engagement.
In Summer 2025, 3091 pupils completed the survey, which was almost a 30% increase on last year’s survey.
How important is music in your life?
The survey asks students to rate the importance of music in their lives from 1-10, where 1 means not important at all, and 10 means “I can’t live without it.”
Across all school years, the most common answer was 10, with a quarter of children in Years 6 and 7 and nearly 30% in Year 8.
75% of children in Years 6 and 7 rated music’s importance in their lives as 6, rising to 80% in Year 8.
What are your favourite types of music?
We gave the children a range of musical genres and asked them to rank them in order of preference.
Of the styles the children ranked in first place, pop music ranked highly across all genders.
Pop remained overwhelmingly popular when looking at the split across the school years, with 40% of the highest preference across all three years.
Rap was second most likely to be ranked at the highest preference with a steady 18% in Years 6 and 7, dropping by under two points in Year 8.
Making Music
Making music on a computer or device was the most popular way in which respondents make music, with approx. 35% of students making music in this form.
We asked children how they make music and asked them to rank four methods from most to least likely. 39% of females and 45% of males say that they do not regularly perform or make music at all. Of those who did choose a method, singing was most likely among females at 35.7%, whereas males were more likely to play an instrument at 33%.
Suggestions and Ideas
When asked for their ideas and suggestions around what forms of music making students would like to get involved in across Sutton, common answers were:
- Reggae
- Musical Theatre
- Music Technology
- Indie Music
- K-Pop
- Battle of the Bands and Competitions
- More opportunities to perform in bands, e.g. festivals
- More opportunities to sing - in choirs or competitions
Sutton Music Trust already offers a range of activities that pupils may like to join. On Wednesdays (term time), we run a Music Production club and Songwriters Circle at our Music Academy in Wallington.
We also host Up Next, which is a termly event for young people in Sutton to perform in bands or as a soloist. Performances range from DJ sets to solo original material.
In addition, SMT also offers two choirs that are suitable for young people: Sutton Young Singers and Sutton Youth Choir.
Looking forward, we want to ensure we continue to remove barriers students may be experiencing in accessing existing musical opportunities.
We will also continue to work with our Advisory Panel Youth Forum to ensure we provide more musical opportunities for our children and young people.
