I used the RSCM Voice for Life for three of the four years I spent at my last position. You probably know most of this already, but the program involves a series of workbooks (light blue, dark blue, red, and yellow), that cover vocal skills, theory, and other aspects of basic musicianship. The books all have puzzles and other kinds of activities to drill new material, and In the back of each book is a list of targets each chorister is supposed to complete. When they finish them they're awarded a ribbon of the workbook color they just finished, on which to hang an RSCM medal.

For the most part I found that it worked well. But, I was able to split my choristers up into small groups and have each group come to a weekly session, in addition to the full choir rehearsal, to work on their workbooks and their targets. If you can do that it's great because they can learn the basic musicianship and vocal skills without having to spend a lot of rehearsal time on it. It can be a lot of work though and I'd recommend having someone to help out if you have more than a dozen or so kids.

One of my criticisms of VFL would probably be that they start going too fast once you get past the first level. You might find that in the second book the theory gets too complicated too quickly for kids younger than 5th or 6th grade, especially if they have no keyboard skills. There are also other things that you might need to adapt to your own methodology. For example, they expect the kids to be able to sight sing but don't really provide any kind of ideas on what approach to take. I just taught them solfege, and it worked great for me. Also, I had to supplement the workbooks with worksheets from Sibelius so that the kids could have some more practice.

Anyhow, if you can incorporate it well into a choral schedule and have enough help I would really recommend it.

PS-- I usually had the kids reimburse the parish for the workbooks, and we just paid for the teacher's edition and the RSCM annual membership.

I use the Ward Method and Voice For Life in my chorister program. In the pre-chorister formation (First & Second grade) I use Ward to teach solfege in the first year. In the second year (probationary year) I continue with Gregorian Chant though not with Ward. In the third year (Junior year), I start VFL and work up through the colors and ribbons/medals. I find VFL a very good program, but the ability to solfege is important in my choir due to the great amount of Chant that is sung on a weekly basis, and the Ward Method teaches solfege extremely well. Piano lessons are recommended as well starting in the third year and this supports the VFL program well.

From what I remember, the teacher's book does have a good number of vocalises in it. But if you're looking for something more "fun" but not silly and still worthwhile you might think about "Sing Legato" by Kenneth Jennings.

I've been reading through Voice for Life series, and it looks very useful. (I especially liked vocal exercises) Since it is designed to have different levels, I guess it will work well for the school music program. But I believe some choir directors also use this program, especially for children's choir. I'd like to know more how music directors use it for a choir of various levels and ages. Thanks.