The Music Man Project has undoubtedly had a massive positive impact on the lives of people living with learning disabilities.

But the Covid pandemic put the charity to the test and forced it to find new ways to operate music classes which help to stimulate their students.

The Music Man Project teaches children and adults with learning disabilities how to play musical instruments, allowing them to perform on some of the country’s biggest stages.

Desperate to keep up their important work with students, bosses set up MMP Wired, an online project which offers Zoom sessions, Facebook lives, video calls and engaging YouTube videos.

David Stanley, founder of the Music Man Project, was given a British Empire Medal in the New Year’s Honours list for his services to people with special needs.

He said: “When we first had the lockdown back in March it was all very new and everything stopped. It became very, very clear early on that people with learning disabilities, children and adults and indeed their families, were under extraordinary pressure.

“One parent described it as a pressure cooker for them and it was gradually getting worse. Suddenly they’re being told that they can’t go out anywhere and that meant they couldn’t access any activities which was their lifeline and a lifeline for their families.

“A lot of them rely on outside carers. They didn’t want to go to hospital appointments for obvious reasons. All their services stopped so we thought: ‘What can we do?’

“On the face of it you might think what’s the point, with all that’s going on, for people to sing and play musical instruments? But actually we found that we were really important for all of those families and people with learning disabilities.”

MMP Wired also hosts online concerts and music classes to reduce the risk of their students’ development being reversed. When Covid restrictions permitted him to, Mr Stanley spent days in the summer playing his piano and accordion on the doorsteps of some of his students, as many of them hadn’t been out or had much contact in months.

Mr Stanley added: “A lot of our students are adults and that meant that without that stimulation and education that they get from places like the Music Man Project, they would really be going backwards in their development. They would get more and more isolated and lonely and they are at greater risk of mental heath problems and dementia. I actually described it as a potential physical and mental health calamity among people with learning disabilities.”

During the first lockdown, the Music Man Project received £10,000 of Lottery funding from the government’s emergency Covid-19 funding.

The charity used the money to offer more online services and distributed £6,000 worth of instruments around the country to families which couldn’t access them at home.

The Music Man Project went back into the classrooms in July until December. Following government guidelines all in class wore masks, followed social distancing and had temperature checks..But the latest national lockdown has put music classes back online again.

Mr Stanley added: “My question really is what’s happening now? Are they going to do more funding to allow charities to do this great work or are we all going to have struggle along doing what we can because that [funding] was really effective last time.

“We’re back to square one and we’ve got to try and seek funding where we can to make it even better. But if we don’t get any funding we’re just going to carry on doing all our online work and phoning up all the students individually to make sure they’re OK.”