It’s essential that we make every effort to cater for the needs of every student in our classes, and plan for maximum progress to be made. Here I present some ideas about how best to organise...
Jane Werry Teaching Materials
This article provides teaching ideas and suggestions for Area of Study 2 of the Appraising component of the new Edexcel GCSE music course, which we have now started teaching to Year 10 students (see...
James Manwaring Teaching Materials
A previous Music Teacher resource (January 2017) gives a comprehensive overview of what’s required. As well as including essential information, this resource will suggest strategies for approaching...
Hanh Doan Teaching Materials
Three-part lessons exist in many different areas of education. This article suggests warm-up activities that can be used in a range of musical contexts in the ‘starter’ part of the lesson. However,...
Anna Gower Teaching Materials
It’s quite a soft touch to use Copland’s Rodeo as an example of AoS4’s Western classical tradition since 1910 in the new AQA GCSE specification. This resource is about providing context for Rodeo’s...
Jonathan James Teaching Materials
With Year 10 students, teachers are now nearly halfway through teaching the new GCSE music courses, and here I provide some support for Area of Study 4 of the Edexcel specification, which is simply...
Simon Rushby Teaching Materials
The new 9-1 GCSEs are supposedly more rigorous than their predecessors. In practice, however, this looks like a slight increase in the amount of music theory knowledge expected for the exam, and an...
Jane Werry Teaching Materials
Whatever our motivation for setting our students off with a songwriting task, there’s always a danger that with familiarity comes an assumption that it’s something they’ll be able to ‘just go off and...
Anna Gower Teaching Materials
Edexcel’s GCSE specification for examination in 2018 includes a new Area of Study, AoS3: Music for stage and screen, which features two big hits from Hollywood and Broadway. This resource gives a...
Jonathan James Teaching Materials
This resource draws on the techniques of an ‘animateur’ (workshop leader) and puts them in the context of the curriculum, considering practical ways to approach features in all eight of the set works...
Jonathan James Teaching Materials
As a teacher, Olivier Messiaen taught many of the figures who became giants in the post-war avant-garde – among them Boulez, Stockhausen and Xenakis. And as a composer, he sits on a line from Debussy...
David Kettle Teaching Materials
Many music departments include modules on minimalism in their KS3 and KS4 schemes of work. A contemporary musical style that uses simple repetitive diatonic phrases with catchy rhythms and engaging...
David Ashworth Teaching Materials