Sebastopol Primary School offers a music therapy program 2.5 days a week to support student wellbeing. The music therapy program is facilitated by a Registered Music Therapist (RMT) with experience in special education, disability, and trauma.
Music therapy is a research-based allied health profession in which music is used to actively support people as they aim to improve their health, functioning, wellbeing, and quality of life. It aims to discover and nurture students’ strengths in an enjoyable and accessible way. Music therapists are trained in understanding the effects music experiences can have on behaviours, feelings, thoughts, and actions, and use their therapy training and musical ability to facilitate interactive musical experiences to help clients achieve goals.
Music therapy utilises verbal and non-verbal approaches, such as:
Participating in music activities can assist students to:
These benefits can carry over to the classroom, promoting better engagement in learning, and to life outside school.
Music therapy is complementary to our specialist classroom music program and these two programs differ in their approach. Music therapy uses musical experiences to achieve non-musical goals such as mental health and wellbeing, communication and social skills, or cognitive functions like memory and attention,
while specialist music classes target music-based goals, such as learning an instrument, music history, or music theory.
