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KS3 Music

a professional development programme

Good practice

This part of the unit describes good practice in improving the challenge for musical understanding. It provides an introduction and then explores three key areas of challenge:

  • quality of musical understanding;

  • breadth of musical understanding;

  • depth of musical understanding.

Select each tab below in turn to read the introduction and then to examine each of these key areas of challenge in music.

Introduction

The Objectives and outcomes section suggested that knowledge and skills were at the bottom of the thinking hierarchy, while evaluation and understanding were at the top. In musical terms, playing the right notes in the right order is a matter of accuracy and is related to the ‘quantity’ of musical knowledge. By contrast, making subtle adjustments to compositions or performing practice to take account of the style of the music is a matter of evaluation and is related to the ‘quality’ of musical understanding. There is a demonstrable link, therefore, between progression in generic cognitive learning and progression in musical understanding.

However, whereas cognitive learning moves by step through a single line of progression, progression in musical understanding is more complex. QCA has previously articulated three aspects of progression in music:

  1. Quality: this refers to the way that strong musical understanding is demonstrated by an emphasis on imagination, creativity and cultural awareness. The greater the emphasis on these aspects of learning (rather than on technical issues such as theory or the ability to play the right notes), the greater the quality of musical outcomes and understanding will be.

  2. Breadth: this refers to the range of styles, genres and traditions explored by the pupils. The range of thinking that each requires is critical: progression in musical understanding is partly built by pupils developing a capacity to think musically in a broader range of ways. Progression is also shown by the way pupils increasingly make connections and cross-references between different ways of thinking, and apply this to their practical work.

  3. Depth: this refers to progression in the nature of the musical understanding itself. The type of understanding that Year 9 pupils can demonstrate is more sophisticated than that demonstrated by Year 7 pupils. Articulating this progression therefore helps to identify depth in musical understanding.

 

Quality

Increasing the challenge for quality involves shifting the balance between musical skills and musical understanding. At the early stages of musical learning, skills-based or knowledge-based learning is a priority, but some basic musical understanding is still required. At advanced stages of musical learning, musical understanding becomes the priority, but skills are still needed to access and embed this learning via practical music making. This means that both forms of learning are always present, but by increasingly emphasising understanding, the challenge for quality increases.

This shift of balance between skills and understanding happens not only across key stages but also within units of work at Key Stage 3. Although the intended outcomes of musical understanding should be made explicit at the start of units, there is always a range of knowledge and skills that pupils will need to acquire first. Once the skills are acquired, greater emphasis can be placed on how pupils use them to develop their understanding of the music being studied.

The following diagram describes this shift of emphasis in musical learning, by indicating the changing balance of skills and understanding.

diagram

Use Activity Resource 2a to consider how to build this shift of emphasis in a unit of work you are currently teaching.

You could then:

 

Breadth

Unit 1, Challenges section provides a rationale for ensuring that pupils experience a wide range of styles, genres and traditions. The link with thinking skills is worth repeating here:

'Styles, genres and traditions each have their own, distinctive modes of musical thinking and construction. It is important that pupils have the opportunity to explore these different forms of musical thinking so that they can build a broad musical understanding and a repertoire of approaches to music making.'

While most music teachers provide a breadth of practical musical activity (explored in more detail here), not so many focus on the range of musical thinking that is described above. However, developing this breadth of thinking is crucial if pupils are to successfully develop the richness of musical understanding described by the definitions and models of learning in unit 1.

Use Activity Resource 2b to see how you can plan for this breadth of musical thinking across the key stage. This will include closed, guided and open thinking as well as thinking that pupils develop themselves through their own musical interests.

You could then:

 

Depth

Increasing the depth of challenge in musical skills is well understood by most teachers, given that it is a consistent part of their musical experience as performers and composers. All music teachers will be able to identify the progression of skills that pupils need to acquire when playing the keyboard, for instance.

The curriculum map template provided as Document 5a Microsoft Word 43kb helps not only to identify the breadth of musical skills experienced over the key stage, but also the depth of those skills. For instance, if ensemble performing has been identified as a focus in the second unit of Year 7, and the fourth unit in Year 8 – how is the Year 8 skill more advanced? You can explore this further by undertaking Task 7 (Identifying increasing depth of challenge for skills).

Increasing the depth of challenge in musical understanding is less well understood. Although such progression is indicated by the overarching statement in the first sentence of each of the National Curriculum (2008) level statements, it is not easy to determine its essential characteristics. This progression is critical, however, since it is where genuine aspects of musical quality, understanding and higher-order evaluative thinking are revealed.

Use Activity Resource 2c to explore this notion of depth in musical understanding more thoroughly, and to plan a unit of work that will incorporate increasingly sophisticated aspects of musical understanding as it progresses.

You could then: