The ISM and its sister charity, the ISM Trust, exist to support music and music education. We believe all students should have access to the highest quality music education in school, and through our resources we do all we can to support that.
Over the past few years, we know that resources delivered by the ISM Trust, including Primary Singing Toolkit and Breaking the Singing Barrier, have made a real difference in bringing singing into classrooms where it may not have been before.
A new Framework
We're delighted that the latest ISM Trust music education resource, A Framework for Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment in School Music, has been published. There are two versions: one for primary schools, and one for secondary schools. Originally created in 2019, and now brought up to date with the latest thinking, the revised frameworks are designed to help you plan and assess musical learning in your classroom. They can be used in a number of ways: for individual lessons, for medium-term planning, and for long-term planning. They can also be used for demonstrating children's musical learning and development over time. They are constructed upon sound, research-based principles and evidence into effective teaching, learning and assessment in music.
Perhaps most important, they provide a framework that's designed to help you, your colleagues, and your senior leadership team think about what you want from music education, and how you might best achieve it within your own context. We hope you find the revised documents useful and that there are ideas, provocations and suggestions within them that you can take and adapt to suit your own circumstances.
National Curriculum documents
Some music teachers may already be familiar with our popular National Curriculum documents. Following major events such as Covid-19 as well as changes in policies, England and Wales released new National Plans for Music Education, and Scotland introduced its free tuition policy. ISM research gave us a picture of what has been happening in schools in recent years. We know that it isn't always easy, with several factors including accountability measures and tight budgets impacting the essential work that music teachers do.
Considering all these changes, we felt it was the right time to refresh these documents. It was also important to us to make sure that they could be used by all teachers, no matter which part of the UK you're teaching in, the setting or the curriculum you are following.
The resources have been created by two leaders of music education: Professor Martin Fautley and Dr Alison Daubney. Martin is Emeritus Professor at Birmingham City University. He has a wealth of experience in pedagogy and music education research. He had many years' experience as a music teacher before undertaking doctoral research, working in the education and music facilities at the University of Cambridge. In 2024 the ISM presented Martin with the prestigious Distinguished Musician Award.
Alison has a portfolio career as a teacher, lecturer, researcher and author. She has worked across all ages and stages of music education and taught in a variety of mainstream and special educational settings. She is currently Honorary Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Sussex. She has authored multiple books, materials and research reports, including Teaching Primary Music published by SAGE, and the award-winning Primary Music Toolkit.
Together, Martin and Alison are co-editors of the British Journal of Music Education.
The ISM is committed to supporting music teachers to deliver the best possible music education, and the ISM Trust offers free training opportunities for music teachers through expert-led seminars and webinars. We hope you find these new resources useful – please do share them with your networks.
Links
- Online resources and more information: tinyurl.com/yyynvyxh
- Register to join the ISM: tinyurl.com/2xkvytxh
MT readers are currently offered a 20% discount on ISM membership*; use code MUSICTEACHER20.
(*For standard and early career grades only)
