Leadership guide – headteacher or governor

Current national perspectives on music at Key Stage 3

The content of the materials has been designed to address the key issues for music at Key Stage 3, as indicated by national assessment data and the most recent annual reports by Ofsted on secondary music. Over recent years Ofsted has reported steady improvement in all aspects of musical provision. The 2003/05 report indicated that pupil achievement is now very good or better at Key Stage 3 in one school in six, and that the quality of teaching continues to rise: there is excellent or very good teaching in one school in five and good or better teaching in approaching threequarters of all schools inspected.

This is a good reflection of the commitment given by music teachers to the improvement of music at Key Stage 3. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that music provision at Key Stage 4 is better, and that in many schools general school indicators suggest that music teaching and learning at Key Stage 3 should be better than at present.

Recent national end-of-Key Stage 3 teacher assessment results  35kb indicate that attainment in music at Key Stage 3, as measured through teacher assessments at the end of the key stage, is slightly lower than in most other foundation subjects at level 5 and above, but noticeably lower than in all but one foundation subject at level 6 and above.

You can use Activity Resource LG1 to read how the different units address issues raised by the most recent HMI subject reports.

You can also use Activity Resource LG2 to read how the programme relates to other national developments for music.

You could now:

• develop your understanding of how senior leaders can support the CPD programme by reading more;

• explore further the supporting resources for this unit, including relevant effective practice materials and the archived version of the Leadership guide  378kb from the 2006 DVD.