Mentoring a trainee music teacher or newly qualified teacher can be hard work and time-consuming. But it is also incredibly rewarding, and is guaranteed to make you reflect on your own practice. With...
Jane Werry Secondary education
Revision can be a word with largely negative connotations. For teachers, it can mean producing ‘packs’ and summary resources, going back over old ground with students, and finding innovative ways to...
Simon Rushby Secondary education
In the second of this three-part resource (for part one, see Music Teacher, February 2019), we will be joining the story of the symphony at its heyday in the 19th century, where the form expanded and...
Jonathan James Secondary education
This resource starts with a percussion groove and a group performance of ‘Toca bonito’, and from there moves into the creation of salsa-style cover versions, which could be performed live or using...
Jane Werry Secondary education
This is the first in a three-part resource that uses the development of the symphony as a guide for charting the evolution of large-ensemble instrumental writing in Western classical music. As such,...
Jonathan James Secondary education
What is music? What is composition? What is a ‘new direction’ in music? Who is John Cage?
These are the topics I'll cover in this resource on John Cage's Three Dances for two prepared pianos, one of...
There are many advantages to exploring graphic notation in the classroom:
It's a fact that most of our young students will only have a limited experience of working with and understanding standard...
The short answer is that it gives a lot of bang for your buck: you can explore many musical concepts through a unit on variations in a relatively short space of time. These include meaty compositional...
Jane Werry Secondary education
Following an earlier resource on gaming music (AQA AoS2: Computer gaming music, Music Teacher, November 2018), here I'm going to consider ways of teaching computer game music using composition. This...
James Manwaring Secondary education
Christmas-themed Music Teacher resources have become something of an annual tradition, much like advent calendars or leaving out mince pies for Santa. In previous years, there have been some...
Hanh Doan Secondary education
It’s that time of year again. The end of a really long term, one often filled with the need for cover work or room changes as concert rehearsals and mock exams take place. But how can you keep classes...
Anna Gower Secondary education
In a number of schools, music teachers will need cover in order to meet the demands of the festive season. When cover is required, a teacher from another department will inevitably end up in your room...
James Manwaring Secondary education