Two musicians in the North East have received a patent to develop a digital teaching resource to be used in schools and colleges across the country.

Eric Lewis and Dave Shaw created Addanote in 2019 and have been awarded funding by the UK Patent Office. Their resource provides an innovative digital approach to teaching music and musical instruments.

Addanote is supported by evidence-based research in cognitive and neuropsychology, and trials by teachers have found it works well in large classes with a range of abilities.

It minimises the number of mistakes for students in their learning process, to keep them engaged and accelerate their learning.

Mr Lewis said: “If you’re a teacher or an Ofsted inspector then you are always looking for a teaching approach that is sequential, incremental, interactive, cumulative and regularly revisits prior learning to convert working memory into more permanent long-term memory.”

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Eric, from Ryton, and Dave, from Sunniside, are music teachers and musicians themselves, each of them playing in respective bands. They were inspired to create AddanoteTM by a Sunderland headteacher’s challenge to create a video resource to help teach classroom music.

The Northern Echo: From left, Dave Shaw and Eric Lewis

Mr Shaw added: “Pupils are more engaged and motivated when following a learning pathway of highly achievable goals, and as a direct consequence their behaviour management becomes less of a strain on the teacher.

"For school headteachers and business managers, Addanote is very affordable and very easy to use. There is no excuse not to give all pupils the opportunity to adopt, learn and master a musical instrument.”