Saturday 6 December 2014

On teaching

A response I wrote a while ago to an article on whether teaching is a fulfilling job. In all the madness of Christmas concerts and carol services and end of term exhaustion, I enjoyed re-reading it...

A family friend, herself am experienced primary headteacher, asked me the other day whether I enjoy being a teacher. She'd had the same conversation with her daughter, a secondary science teacher, a few days earlier. I think that most teachers would recognize the feelings of confusion, and doubt, that precede any answer to this question, and finally, my answer: teaching is both the best job in the world, and one of the worst.

There are days when you end the day feeling fantastic. Your year 9s enthused about a new project, and threw themselves in whole-heartedly; year 13 engaged in a really interesting academic debate that took them well beyond the realms of their A Level syllabus; a struggling year 11 finally reached the next grade boundary in their most recent assessment, and the enthusiasm of your period 5 year 7 class was infectious. On these days, teaching is the best job in the world.

Then there are the days when 30 year 10s really don't want to learn about a topic which, let's face it, is truly dull, and you find yourself counting the minutes as you are overwhelmed by apathy. One of your year 8 students kicks off and you spend the entire lesson fire-fighting to avoid full-scale anarchy, and end the lesson feeling exhausted and overcome by guilt that you barely spoke to the 'good' students at all. You don't have time for a lunch break - or even to make a cup of tea and go to the loo, as you're dealing with the fallout from the latest hormonally-charged argument in your form, and spending every free minute chasing those year 8s who need to be in detention. When the end of the day finally draws around, you're faced with a 2-hour meeting, and then another 3 hours of marking at home, before you go to bed to get up before the crack of dawn to do it all again tomorrow. On those days, teaching is one of the worst jobs in the world.

Of course, what we - teachers and students alike - hope for is that there will be enough of those great days to keep you going through the worst, and so every day, and every week, and every term we put every ounce of our energy into making them happen, and when there's no energy left we keep on going, dragging ourselves through the days with an exhausted smile until the end of term arrives, and we can collapse, sleep for three days and get a cold.

So, excuse me if I don't have much patience for those who bemoan a teacher's holidays, and those who can't understand why it isn't an easy job. It's a tough one. But it can be the best one in the world, and there's no doubt that it's one of the most important.

So do I like being a teacher? Yes, and no. Do I regret being a teacher? Never.

Sunday 23 November 2014

Classroom or extra-curricular - is it possible to be amazing at both?

This week, I've been mostly thinking about the links and conflicts between classroom music and extra-curricular music. Working in a 1.5-person music department (where I'm the 1), the extra-curricular workload is heavy. Fitting in rehearsals for bands, choirs and ensembles, organising concerts and visits is a tall order when there are only a couple of you in the department - and this size of department is by no means unusual.


This week, our music department ran a workshop with a visiting professional musician followed by a visit to a concert the next day, supported the school's musical theatre festival, and hosted a joint choir rehearsal with another local school in preparation for a performance at a local music festival - from which I've just returned (on a Sunday afternoon). And of course, our other 7 ensembles all had rehearsals for the Christmas concert and carol services that are not too far away. All in all, it was a great week for musicians! But definitely a less than outstanding week for the students in my lessons, which unsurprisingly were not top of the priority list.


Of course, on this particular occasion I felt that a few slightly back-of-an-envelope lessons was a small price to pay for a week of excellent musical opportunities. But then, when I'm the one running the majority of these opportunities (as the only full-time member of the department), this sort of week is not all too unusual. And there will be a lot more hastily planned lessons and even cover lessons coming up as the run-up to Christmas takes hold.


Don't get me wrong, I still spent time planning all of my lessons this week, created the necessary resources and completed the requisite marking (no time for a social life, of course, but that's another story) - and I'm fairly sure that all of the lessons that I taught would have been 'good' enough for Ofsted. But definitely not as good as they would be if I wasn't so busy with everything else. And, bearing in mind that these lessons are the mainstay of music in the school - and certainly the way that the majority of students access music - it leaves me wondering to what extent it is ok to spend less time on the many to benefit the few. Admittedly, when I look at the actual numbers, it's not quite so dire as that sentence suggests - 280 students that I taught (or set cover lessons for) this week, versus 100 or so involved in extra-curricular music. And of course, there is a huge amount of overlap in that. But still, my point stands.


Sadly, I don't think there's really a solution that doesn't involve money.There aren't enough hours in the week for me to simply spend longer on my lessons when there is so much extra-curricular work going on. And I don't feel that lightening the extra-curricular load - i.e. running fewer ensembles, taking part in fewer concerts etc. is an option - at least, not if we want to continue to be a successful Music department.


The only other options, then, involve more funding - and essentially more staff. Either more staff to assist with running the extra-curricular events (although this is something that my school already does - we have three peripatetic teachers running ensembles, and extra staff members are paid to accompany music trips when they're needed), or for the existing music teachers to be given lighter timetables (and therefore more staff hours in total) in lieu of extra-curricular activities. In an ideal world, this would be a perfect solution - 3.5 more hours of PPA per week to make up for the same amount of time currently spent running extra-curricular ensembles (not taking into account the additional hours that go into concerts and events, of course - this week totalling around 6 in department-run activities). However, for the vast majority of schools, budgets just won't run to this.


In fact, Music departments around the country are currently seeing a move in the opposite direction, as schools seek to make savings in light of funding cuts. Music teacher groups on social media websites suggest that A Level Music, in particular, is under threat across the country, as schools move to save on sixth form teaching by cutting subjects with smaller class sizes - and therefore reducing their staffing costs. A worrying prospect when one considers the knock-on effect this might have on the rest of the work of the department - and particularly on extra-curricular music.


So, I suppose the conclusion that I've reached this week is that there is no right answer as to whether extra-curricular music or classroom music should take priority. Both, I think, are incredibly important in introducing students to music and getting them more involved in it - and both will need to be the priority at different times of the year.


But, if the 'powers that be' - whether that be Ofsted, the local authority, the government or even just the school governors - want to see music departments that are truly outstanding in both their classroom work and their extra-curricular teaching, then schools need a lot more funding - or to move their funding in the direction of the music department - to make this happen. And in the mean time, all we can do is try our best. And hopefully find time for a social life sometimes too.

Saturday 15 November 2014

Preparing all students for Key Stage 4

"Preparing all students for Key Stage 4" was the title of a Teach Through Music 'Inspire event' that I attended on Wednesday this week. The event, which was really a seminar and forum for discussion, looked at the various different options for students post-KS3 (GCSEs, BTECs, NCFEs, etc...), and considered both how these work - or should work - for different students, and how Key Stage 3 teaching should prepare students to continue to study Music. Of course, all while considering the historically - and continually - low uptake of GCSE Music (hovering around 8% nationally).


Of course, there were no real answers. Other than, I suppose, to recognise that different students come from different backgrounds, have different experiences and interests, and want different things out of their Music education. In fact, this very fact could well be what makes our job, as Music teachers, so difficult. In one year 9 class of 30 at my current school, I have a grade 6 classical violinist with no interest in taking part in 'school music', an accomplished guitarist singer-songwriter with ambitions for a career in the pop music industry, a host of grade 2-4 pianists, violinists and flautists looking to take Music at GCSE, three students who love nothing better than to stay behind after the lesson and discuss rock music from the 1960s to the present day, four Carnatic (Southern Indian) musicians who spend a huge amount of their time outside of school immersed in their own musical tradition - and of course a whole range of students whose musical experience is more limited to their lessons in school and their own music listening, some of whom will want to continue to study Music next year, and others won't. How, in one hour-long lesson per week, I can ensure that each of these students is challenged, encouraged and supported in their Music learning at a level appropriate to their ability and their interests, is a question that requires a lot of thought, and possibly has no satisfactory answer. But it was not this particular question that got me thinking this week.


The issue that really intrigued me this week (of the many that were raised at Wednesday's seminar) was how we can teach Music in a continuous, joined-up, way, from Key Stage to Key Stage. Certainly one conclusion from the discussions on Wednesday - which included a panel interview with four very articulate and interesting year 11 students from two London schools - was that there should be a real sense of continuity throughout secondary Music (and indeed from primary to secondary - though this is a slightly different issue) in order to encourage more students in Year 9 to choose to study Music in years 10-11. One of the most commonly cited reasons for students choosing not to continue their musical education is the sense of elitism that surrounds Key Stage 4 (and particularly GCSE) Music - the idea that students need to be highly accomplished on an instrument, or singing, in a way that cannot be attained in classroom lessons alone, in order to succeed. This idea is not without foundation, with GCSE performance units requiring students to perform to a minimum of approximately grade 3 standard in order to be able to obtain the highest grades. Indeed, we teachers (myself included) tend to rely on students' extra-curricular music lessons - even if these only start in year 10 - to support them through the performance side of the course.


However, several speakers at Wednesday's seminar suggested that this should not be the case. Keith Evans - programme leader of Teach Through Music and fellow and director of the Music PGCE at the University of Greenwich - argued that Music should be taught more like Art, where students are given the skills and encouragement to think of themselves as artists from the very beginning, such that every student is considered capable of continuing to study the subject to GCSE level.


So, how do we ensure that every student is prepared, and able, to study Music GCSE at the end of year 9? The main concern of teachers - or at least those with whom I spoke on Wednesday - seems to be that of teaching notation, and instrumental/vocal performance. How do we ensure that students learn enough about notation, and music theory, at Key Stage 3, within the atmosphere of creativity and inclusivity that encourages engagement - and that is praised by Ofsted, who rightly discourage the teaching of theory separately from engagement with music itself? How can we give all students, of such differing abilities, instrumental performance skills, within just one lesson per week?


One possible solution seems to lie in Whole Class Ensemble Teaching (formerly 'Wider Opportunities'), whereby students are taught instruments en masse. This is an increasingly popular approach at primary schools (which many secondary schools seem to be yet to recognise), and one which some secondary schools are starting to take up. In my North London school, we're currently delivering a WCET brass project to year 8 - every student is learning the trumpet or trombone. 9 weeks in, and the first cohort have (mostly!) mastered the notes C to A, and are reading music in 4 and 3 time, including (as of this week) dotted rhythms. Obviously within the cohort, progress is wide-ranging - as is the amount of individual practice that the students are putting in - but there is no doubt that each student is gaining a good understanding of how music works, and how it feels to be a 'real' musician. However, this project will finish in February - indeed, we're already half way through - and a new cohort will begin, while the current cohort swap back to a more 'normal' year 8 programme of work, including song-writing, samba drumming and an introduction to Music  Technology. It was my choice to run the programme like this, of course, and I believe that the skills that the students will learn in the second half of the year are just as valuable as those that they are learning now. But it's difficult to choose to cut short such a beneficial programme.


Some schools, of course, are able to manage this in other ways. The much-acclaimed Isaac Newton Academy in Ilford gives students two Music lessons per week - one 'Big Band' lesson (WCET) and one curriculum-based Music lesson. Others - such as St Gabriel's College in Lambeth - are able to offer large numbers of students heavily subsidised, or free, small group instrumental lessons as part of the Music department's standard offer. It is of note, of course, that both of these schools 'specialise' in Music, and have a large amount of ring-fenced funding to enable these programmes to exist - not something that is available to every school.


Another suggestion from Wednesday's seminar was that we should start to teach our Key Stage 3 Musicians more like we teach our GCSE classes. The reverse has been long-suggested as a way to ensure that Key Stage 4 lessons are engaging and practical - but what does it really mean to consider this the other way around? As I currently deliver Edexcel GCSE Music, a major part of what I teach at Key Stage 4 is the study of 'set works' - pieces of music that we get to know in depth, not only through listening and discussion, but through performing them and composing in response to them. Admittedly, I have my reservations about how this translates into the listening exam (which seems to be much more of a recollection exam than testing any real aural skills), but nonetheless, students gain a rigorous understanding of music through their study of these. So what if I tried this at Key Stage 3? I spent an hour yesterday arranging the instrumental parts of Handel's 'And The Glory of the Lord' to be performed by my year 10 class - but what about my year 9s? Could I not create a version which gave a challenging solo to my grade 6 violinist, accompanied by a guitar chord pattern for my singer-songwriter, a Carnatic-notated counter-melody and a range of grade 2-3 parts, as well as more simple vocal and keyboard or xylophone parts for those students without an instrumental specialism? Of course I could! And perhaps it is this sort of activity - reading from differentiated notation, performing together as a whole-class ensemble - which might allow all students to start to feel like musicians who could continue to study the subject at GCSE - and who could continue to develop their performance skills - even if they are 'just' on the xylophone - to a higher level suitable for GCSE performance.


Of course, there's no way I would have time to prepare something like this for every lesson, or every scheme of work at Key Stage 3. But even if there were one whole-class ensemble project - based on some sort of 'set work' - per year, I do think this could make a real difference to how students perceive their ability as musicians. And, of course, to how confident students feel about reading notation. As with all things, if we expect a certain level, students will tend to rise to it, learning by osmosis and with support from their peers - something that is made much more feasible in a whole-class ensemble.


But wait - do I do this already? A conversation with a non-music teacher at my school this week about the end of year Music exams that he has invigilated suggested that perhaps, to some extent, I do. In talking about the end of year Music exams which our Key Stage 3 students take (which are written in the style of a GSCE listening exam, with questions based on styles of music studied over the course of that year), he mentioned that he is often impressed by the students' abilities to answer complex questions about Music, including notation and theoretical understanding, by the end of year 9. Do I spend a lot of time teaching them theory, he asked? I responded no - not at all - but that the gaining of theoretical musical knowledge was an implicit expectation in each topic that we study. And thus I realised that, perhaps, I am already doing much of what is required to prepare every student for Key Stage 4.


An example. Year 9 are currently studying Music of Africa and the Caribbean. Although I want them to be exposed to music from other cultures in this topic, what I'm really hoping is that they will all develop their understanding of rhythmic notation (in various forms) and improve their ensemble performance skills. In the first two lessons, we've performed Harry Belafonte's 'Jamaican Farewell' together as a class - adding clapped rhythms which we read from box-dot notation. The students have then worked in groups to create their own arrangements of this song, using ukuleles, guitars, keyboards and a range of percussion to add chords, bass lines, addition rhythms and in some cases, vocal harmonies, with every student taking part in the performance as a singer or instrumentalist. All of which was supported by simple 'task sheets' containing all they needed to know about the key, chords and metre of the piece. Perhaps this isn't so different from a GCSE lesson after all. And all of this, in just two lessons? These students are clearly already musicians - maybe I just need to remind them of this more often.


So I suppose my conclusions from all of this is are twofold:


1. That I do want to do more whole-class ensemble work with my Key Stage 3 students - whether this is through continuing a WCET project or, more likely (and less costly), through embedding it in some of my schemes of work, and spending some time arranging pieces to enable this to happen.


But also, 2. That a lot of what I - and doubtless many other Music teachers - already do at Key Stage 3 does prepare students adequately for Key Stage 4. What is needed, perhaps, is a break away from any sort of discussion of Music as an elite subject, and a move towards a style of teaching which makes it explicitly clear to students in years 7-9 that they are learning to be a 'real' musician already. And that each and every one of them has the ability to continue to study the subject further, and to perform at a higher level. As long as they put in the practice, of course - but that's an issue for another day, and another blog post...

Teachers and students thinking as musicians


I wrote the following post last month, to be featured on the blog for Teach Through Music - a London-wide CPD programme aimed at improving Key Stage 3 Music teaching. The blog, in its original form, can be found here.


One of the key themes of Teach Through Music is teachers (and pupils) “behaving and thinking like musicians” in the classroom. That Music teachers should behave like musicians seems an obvious – and obviously good – idea, but I’m not sure that it is quite such a simple statement as it might first appear.


A couple of weekends ago, I attended a Music education symposium in which the role of the Music teacher in the classroom became a hotly debated topic. Over the past fifty or so years, Music has mostly been taught in a child-centred ‘progressive’ way, with an emphasis on children being creative, and the teacher being a sort of mediator, who scaffolds students’ creativity and structures their learning. More recently, however, ideas such as Musical Futures have led Music teachers to take a more hands-off approach, allowing students to direct their own learning, with the teacher becoming more of a facilitator of whatever musical work the students want to do. But now, education seems to be swinging back towards an old-fashioned idea of teachers imparting knowledge, telling students what to learn and when to learn it. And perhaps programmes such as Whole Class Ensemble Tuition (or Wider Opps by its old name) fit in more with this idea – the teacher standing at the front, teaching a whole class how to play the same instrument – not much room for student choice there. So with all these changes, it’s not all that easy to work out how exactly a teacher should be acting as a musician too.


The key question that I took out of that symposium was “what does it actually mean for a teacher to be a musician in the classroom?” Perhaps a bit too philosophical for a Saturday afternoon. But I think there are two quite opposite answers to that question.


Being a musician in the classroom means drawing upon your own musical skills and interests. In a recent Teach Through Music launch event, vocal leader Pete Churchill talked about how important it is for music teachers to be ‘authentic’. If you can’t sing like BeyoncĂ©, don’t try to do it – the kids will know. But show them what you’re really good at, and what you really love, and they’ll respect you as a musician. Opening yourself up like this, however, might make you feel vulnerable - students might start to judge your musical ability and pick you up on any mistakes you make, or weaknesses in your musicianship. By stopping being ‘in charge’ for a while, in order to be a musician, you could lose control of classroom behaviour. But, in throwing yourself into being a musician in the classroom, you might also empower the students – give them space to be musicians as well, and to understand what it really means. By using our own talents and enthusing about our own musical preferences in our lessons, we can create a far more genuine musical experience than if we stay removed from the musical process. Even if that does mean banging on at year 11 about how great Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ is, and then making a mistake in the third bar of playing it. After all, if we expect our students to be vulnerable, to make musical mistakes and learn from them, why shouldn’t we?


On the other hand, perhaps if Music teachers become too subjective in the classroom, too fuelled by sharing our own musical passions and being a musician all of the time, we might diminish the opportunities for students to make their own musical choices, and to work independently as musicians. David Brent in ‘The Office’ taking over the staff training session and ending up enthusiastically playing the guitar to his bemused staff comes to mind... Hopefully none of us are quite that bad, but there is no doubt something to be said for stepping back, giving students creative freedom, and letting them get on with it.


Personally, I think there’s a balance to be struck. It’s vital that students know that their Music teachers are experts in the field – as with any subject. And this means modelling performances and compositions, playing alongside students, conducting the class choir. But it also means giving the students space and time to be musicians themselves, whether that is in creating a performance of their favourite pop song, or composing a polyrhythmic piece for djembes. And then working alongside them, and learning with them.


I am currently teaching a topic on Film Music to year 9. We’ve done a good amount of listening, some performance and discussion, but now we’re firmly stuck into composing – a minute and a half of underscore for a Harry Potter ‘detention in the forest’ scene, to be precise. The students have got a ‘toolkit’ of devices to use (chromatic scales, cluster chords etc.) and features to consider (timbre, dynamics, etc.), but other than that, they’re pretty much on their own. Except, of course, they’re not. As their teacher and resident expert musician, I’m working with each group of composers to help them along the way. Listening to their work and their arguments about how to make it better. Improvising new ostinatos as they perform the piece so far, and transposing ideas that haven’t quite found their way into the same key as the rest of the group. Playing a question-and-answer pattern with the student who’s not quite confident enough to compose a whole melody by themselves, and suggesting ways for the bass drum player to develop their pulse into an interesting rhythm. That’s how I act as a musician in my classroom.


And it takes a long time. Students can’t compose a whole piece of underscore in one lesson, and a teacher can’t impart all of their musical wisdom at once. But given space and time to work independently, and support from an expert musician, students can create all sorts of fantastic music. Perhaps we shouldn’t move too far away from the child-centred progressive tradition after all.

A new blog

I've been told (and been thinking) that it's about time that I started to write an occasional blog, to keep track of my thoughts and musings about teaching Music. Having taught Music for 6 years - in Cambridgeshire during my training, and since then in London - and carried out a variety of research in that time, I feel like I have some justification in doing so. Nonetheless, I'm sure that some, on discovering this blog, might be less than excited about yet another Music teaching blog. And so, feeling unoriginal on a Saturday morning, this is what I have named it.

All this said, I hope that some of my insights and ideas may be interesting to those who read them. And please feel free to comment if so!