KS3 Music

Recognising impact

This unit aims to help music teachers review and refine their practice in setting appropriate challenge in music so that they can promote higher-order thinking skills, recognise increasing challenge in musical understanding and evaluation skills, and accommodate pupils’ prior learning, particularly in relation to quality of instrumental and vocal expertise.

This unit leads teachers to:

• use a hierarchy of thinking skills as a tool to improve pupils’ development of skills and knowledge;
• identify the progression in learning that promotes effective development of musical understanding;
• use language effectively to promote challenge for learning in listening and reviewing and evaluating activities;
• employ varied strategies that take account of pupils’ prior musical experiences, skills and understanding.

This will enable teachers to:

• present an expectation of challenge as a routine part of classroom practice;
• sequence learning episodes by increasing the quality of challenge;
• use structured questions to probe and develop pupils’ understanding of essential skills and knowledge;
• make explicit the links between quality, breadth and depth of challenge that contribute to progression in musical understanding;
• plan for and appropriately assess pupils’ progression in musical understanding;
• routinely expect pupils to use a musical vocabulary effectively;
• challenge pupils to appraise their own work and that of others rigorously, with appropriate descriptive, expressive and musical language;
• identify and acknowledge the range and breadth of prior musical experiences that pupils bring with them to the classroom;
• plan learning that provides all pupils with appropriate challenge, taking account of the breadth of instrumental and vocal interests, skills and understanding that pupils possess.

As a result, pupils will be able to:

• tackle and meet musical challenges with enthusiasm;
• analyse their learning, reflect on learning goals and regularly evaluate their own progress against clear criteria;
• use the higher-order skills of justification, decision-making and hypothesising, and apply this thinking to their own work;
• value musical understanding as highly as musical skills and knowledge;
• identify and assess the quality of their work by reference to musical understanding;
• use musical vocabulary accurately to inform their learning;
• explore, explain and justify musical views and decisions;
• use existing musical interests and skills in class, particularly where they have developed specific instrumental or vocal expertise and understanding.