If you are a teacher or head of music in a secondary school, please read on and consider contributing to a vital survey into the state of music education in our secondary schools.

Colleagues at the University of Sussex have recently launched an online survey to gather a longitudinal view of secondary school music provision in order to investigate and document any changes within the curriculum across Key Stages 3 and 4, staffing levels and uptake of music within and beyond the curriculum.

Anecdotally, numerous factors appear to impact upon music education across secondary schools; the survey aims to document changes and provide more substantive evidence and reasons for them. Without data over time, the arguments remain anecdotal, so please complete this questionnaire and please share widely with your colleagues in other schools.

We are asking for 15 minutes of your time to provide responses to this questionnaire so that we can present a full picture of music education over the past five years and projecting into the 2016-17 academic year.

The link can be found at: https://sussex.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/music2012-2016

The research is led by Dr Ally Daubney and Duncan Mackrill from the Department of Education at the University of Sussex. In line with the strict ethical procedures by which this work is bound, only these two researchers will have access to the data provided and you have their absolute assurance that you or your school will not be identifiable in any reporting.

Given the potential significance of this work and the interest which it has already generated, both Music Education Subject Associations (The Incorporated Society of Musicians and Music Mark) have taken a keen interest in the work and will be involved in reporting, publishing and sharing the findings.

We are really hoping you have the time to get involved and help us to cast the net far and wide in collecting this data.