Objectives and outcomes

This training unit is designed to help you plan individual lessons that are musically engaging, focused on learning and structured effectively.

It will lead you to plan lessons in which the learning objectives are clearly related to the rest of the unit of work, are made explicit to the pupils and are supported by a range of teaching strategies.

Pupils then learn through a structured engagement in practical music making and are immersed in relevant musical activity. They are also encouraged to use different modes of learning and to think for themselves – how and why will learning be improved?

The unit will focus in particular on:

• how to define learning objectives that are clear and precise;
• how to structure lessons with sequences of episodes;
• how to use a variety of teaching strategies to help pupils learn more effectively;
• how to make clear the purpose of a lesson at different points within a unit of work.

As a way of identifying your current practice, use Activity Resource 1 to carry out a simple assessment of the way you currently plan individual lessons.

After exploring this introduction, you may want to

• develop your exploration of these key principles by reading more;
• continue with this unit by exploring good practice in lesson planning.