The Sixteen brings free online resources to UK schools thanks to philanthropic support
Backed by the Vinehill Trust and Michael Watt, Ignite: Digital Schools offers new choral repertoire and practical teaching materials to primary and secondary schools nationwide.
Available free from 16 October, Ignite: Digital Schools combines three specially commissioned pieces with performance videos, learning guides, backing tracks and classroom activities. The materials cater for teachers with varying levels of musical confidence, without requiring specialist expertise, instruments or expensive equipment.
The repertoire includes Will Todd’s Let Me Walk in Peace, which draws on musical ideas from Handel’s Messiah; Bob Chilcott’s Tallis Nightsong, an arrangement of Tallis’s ‘Canon’ with new words; and Lucy Walker’s The Nightingale, a setting of Christina Rossetti’s poem ‘Bird Raptures’. Each is available in a two-part upper-voice version for primary schools and mixed-voice versions for secondary schools.
The resources feature The Sixteen and its founder and conductor, Harry Christophers, and allow pupils to sing virtually with the ensemble. Dr Liz Stafford of Music Education Solutions assisted in developing the teaching materials.
Jenny Begley, The Sixteen’s director of learning and participation, said, ‘Every young person, whatever their background or their postcode, deserves the chance to discover the joy of singing together.’
The project forms part of The Sixteen Ignite, launched in 2025 to broaden access to choral music and improve representation within the sector. Its other strands include an academy for singers aged 14–18 who have faced barriers to training, and partnerships with youth choirs around the UK.
By making the resources freely available nationwide, The Sixteen aims to reach children whose opportunities to experience live choral music may be limited, while giving teachers practical support to make singing a regular part of school life.