A Practical Guide to Teaching Music in the Secondary School

Chris Philpott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415482585
• eBook ISBN: 9781134015856
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

A Practical Guide to Teaching Music in the Secondary School provides valuable support, guidance and creative ideas for student teachers, mentors and practising teachers who want to develop their music teaching. Written to accompany the successful textbook Learning to Teach Music in the Secondary School, it will help you understand important current developments and explore new possibilities for teaching and learning.

Focusing on teaching music musically, the book explores musical learning through placing pupils at the centre of a musical experience. Considering the revised KS3 curriculum and the 14--19 agenda in music, it also seeks to broaden the perspectives of music teachers through engaging with collaborative practice, transitions and cross-curricular work. Key issues explored include:

• personalising musical learning
• teaching creatively and promoting creativity
• approaches to using ICT in the classroom
• musical collaboration with other adults
• assessment for learning in music
• making connections with other subjects.

Using practical examples and tasks, this book will help you critically examine the way in which children learn music. It is an invaluable resource for those involved in teaching music who are seeking to develop their practical and theoretical understanding.

Part 1
Musical learning

Chapter 1
Personalising learning in music education

CHRIS PHILPOTT

INTRODUCTION

The personalisation of learning is a major theme in current education policy and is the most recent manifestation of an ongoing concern for individual needs and inclusion, i.e. a concern to engage pupils in learning and to provide access to achievement for all.

The personalisation of learning has long been an important issue in music education and in many ways the past 50 years of curriculum developments have been targeted at inclusion. For example, there has been an awareness that while ‘music’ is an important part of the lives of most pupils, their engagement and achievements in ‘school music’ has been limited to a relatively small elite. Developments in music education such as an increased emphasis on composition, ‘world’ musics, ‘pop’ music, technology and, most recently, the use of ‘informal’ pedagogies have been inspired, at least in part, by a desire for a more inclusive music curriculum.

There is a sense in which the whole of this book is about how to personalise the learning for your pupils. Each chapter aims to develop your understanding of how to maximise the musical engagement and achievements for all.

OBJECTIVES By the end of this chapter you should be able to: • understand what personalisation means in music education; • understand how some current initiatives in music education articulate with personalisation; • devise some strategies for personalising learning in music.

PERSONALISING LEARNING

What is meant by personalisation? What is meant by the personalisation of learning in the music classroom?

Christine Gilbert has defined personalising learning as ‘focusing … on each child’s learning in order to enhance progress, achievement and participation’ (DfES 2006b: 3).

To realise this aim Hargreaves (2006) has identified nine interconnected ‘gateways’ to personalisation and these ‘gateways’ resonate with many of the chapters in this book. The ‘gateways’ represent a way of conceptualising the strategies to maximise achievements for all pupils and for them to achieve their potential.

Reading Box 1.1 and carrying out Tasks 1.1 and 1.2 will enable you to audit your own experience and ideas in relation to the gateways.

Box 1.1 Nine gateways to personalisation Assessment for learning (AfL) AfL is about teachers and pupils coming to know themselves and each other through, for example, questioning and feedback. AfL is embedded in teaching and learning such that it can feed forward into how and what to learn and thus contribute to personalisation. Learning to learn Learning to learn is about pupils developing the skills to take control of their own learning. The notion implies the development of a metacognitive awareness of the learning process that leads to an increased independence from teacher-led learning. Student (pupil) voice When the pupil’s voice contributes to personalisation pupils are invited to make a contribution to, for example, the organisation of the curriculum and the school. The concept of co-construction is important here. Curriculum Personalisation of the curriculum is not only about choice (of subject, of syllabus), but also about promoting approaches to teaching and learning which facilitate real engagement, e.g. planning for creativity and the pupil voice. New technologies Technologies can enhance personalisation through their capacity to provide alternative teaching strategies and a wide range of resources. They can also provide access, control and independence in learning. School design and organisation Schools can be designed and organised to maximise personalisation. This could involve devising a timetable to maximise curriculum choice or designing classrooms to facilitate a flexible approach to learning. Advice and guidance Personalising learning will require pupils to be able to make informed choices about their micro and macro progress. This guidance might come from a wide variety of sources both within and outside of the school. Mentoring and coaching Mentoring and coaching involves more targeted and ongoing support for learning. Such support can come in the form of pupil to pupil or adult to pupil. The adult can come from within the school or from the wider community. Workforce development Personalised learning can be supported through the deployment of a wide range of professionals. For example, there are an increasing number of ‘para-professionals’ who engage with pupils, such as teaching assistants and community workers.

Task 1.1 Auditing experience and ideas on the personalisation of learning

Task 1.2 A presentation on one of the gateways Take one of the gateways and devise a presentation on the implications for music education. Your research for the presentation should include current initiatives, e.g. the National Curriculum, Musical Futures, Music Manifesto, Wider Opportunities. Share this with your peers, either face to face or online, perhaps via a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

PERSONALISING LEARNING IN MUSIC

It is clear that the nine gateways are intimately related; for example, if pupils are given opportunities to choose which pieces they wish to perform they are engaging in the co-construction of the curriculum, exercising their ‘voice’ and there is the potential for an informed dialogue with their teachers (AfL). For this reason Hargreaves (2006) has clustered the nine gateways into ‘deeps’ which make the links between them more exp...

Table of contents

• Routledge Teaching Guides
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Contributors
• Series editors’ introduction
• Introduction
• Part 1 Musical learning
• Part 2 Developing musical pedagogy
• Part 3 Broadening your perspectives
• References
• Index