KS3 Music

Background

A range of inspection and research evidence identifies common issues in structuring learning for musical engagement. It also describes how successful teaching finds solutions that enable positive musical learning. The main characteristics are outlined below.

Common issues

• Planning for lessons does not make pupils’ musical learning the key issue, but focuses on activities or tasks.
• Lessons do not immediately engage pupils with active musical experiences.
• The learning focus for the lesson is not made explicit, and expectations are not clear because processes and outcomes have not been modelled effectively.
• The challenge of practical activity is not defined with enough clarity. Pupils are left for too long working in pairs or groups without being brought back together to refocus on learning.
• When work is being shared, too much emphasis is given to how individuals or pairs can improve, rather than drawing out key points of learning for the whole class.

Pupils:

• do not know how to relate the learning for an individual lesson to wider learning about styles, genres or traditions;
• are not taught how to improve their skills and understanding and insufficient time is given to preparation of performances;
• are not given enough time or clear strategies to improve their work.

Resolving the issues

• Effective planning is explicit about musical learning – what it is that pupils will learn, and how they will learn it.
• The learning objectives for the lessons are made explicit to pupils. They are constantly referred to, and pupils know how these objectives will support their wider learning.
• Expectations of learning are differentiated and made challenging for all pupils.
• The structure of lessons follows a broad pattern of ‘engage – learn – review’.
• The ‘learn’ section contains a series of clearly defined episodes, each with its own learning objective and outcome.
• Pupils learn through carefully structured engagement in practical music making and are immersed in relevant musical activity. Lessons are immediately focused on active involvement with sounds and music. The engagement activities at the start of a lesson are carefully planned. Thereafter, teaching uses a range of activities, short timescales, increasing levels of challenge and well-organised resources to develop learning.
• Pupils are encouraged to use different modes of learning, and are especially made to use thinking skills – how and why will learning be improved?
• Teachers and pupils use appropriate musical vocabulary to describe their learning.
• Lessons conclude with a high-quality musical experience to summarise and encapsulate the learning.