Good practice
Effective lessons will be explicit about these points.
- What it is that pupils will learn. This ensures that pupils are primarily involved in musical learning, with any practical activity designed to support and promote that learning.
- What the link is between the objectives for an individual lesson and the teaching objectives for the complete unit of work.
- What the learning outcomes will look like. This will help to clarify expectations with pupils, and to articulate the type of outcome that demonstrates the learning.
Different teaching strategies will be used to maximise the chances of pupils acquiring the learning quickly and efficiently. For example, modeling can be used to help pupils learn a new skill or procedure. Other strategies include questioning and explaining. The range of strategies used by music teachers may focus most strongly on how to:
- devise purposeful and varied episodes within lessons, and know how to move effectively between them;
- plan short timescales for practical activities, with new challenges for pupils at each re-start;
- plan the beginning and ending of lessons so that they enable effective musical engagement.
Effective lesson planning also takes account of the climate for learning and the classroom organisation:
- getting the pitch of the lesson right so that pupils can recognise and demonstrate their learning;
- establishing relationships that allow pupils to feel safe and able to respond;
- providing variety so that different learning styles can be accommodated over time.
Use Activity Resource 2 to analyse the planned learning in a colleague’s music lesson, or as the basis for a review of one of your own lessons.
After exploring this section, you may want to;
