Take a Year 9 class that you currently teach.

Confirm or find out from each pupil the range of musical experience they possess:

• from formal and informal tuition;

• from participation in formal or informal music making, whether individually or with others;

• from their own listening to music.

Given this information, are you confident that the challenges that you are setting individual pupils enable them to use prior experience and to meet new challenges that are ‘in advance of their prior attainment’?

Take a Year 7 class that you currently teach.

Find out from each pupil the same information. Is the range of experiences of these pupils narrower or wider than that of their Year 9 peers, and what are the differences in their knowledge, skills and understanding?

For both classes, what are the specific aspects of challenge that could be targeted and increased to enable more pupils to build on their prior learning?

Development

There will already be systems in place in your school to support transition issues. These can arise at any point of transition in a pupil’s school career, but they apply particularly to the transfer of pupils from Year 6 to Year 7.

Talk to the member of staff with responsibility for transition, and ascertain how you can find out more about the musical learning and experiences that pupils receive in their primary schools. This may be in the process of significant change with the national development of new schemes based on the ‘Wider Opportunities’ pilots for instrumental and vocal tuition at Key Stage 2: see Document 5f  183kb for more details.