In this day and age everyone recognises the importance of making musical activities inclusive and accessible for all. Sometimes, though, it's hard to know exactly where to begin with this, which is where the idea of ‘adaptive teaching’ comes in. This is an approach where you use a variety of different practical strategies to ensure that everyone in your lesson makes progress regardless of their additional needs or level of musical ‘talent.’
Performing
When seeking to adapt a performing activity to cater for all abilities and needs within your class, your first port of call will probably be the instrumental resources you are using.
Clearly, pupils with physical disabilities may need adapted instruments to participate. The waiting time on the manufacture and supply of these can be quite long, so this is something that you really need to plan ahead for.
There may also be pupils in your class who struggle with their motor skills, or are just on the ‘wrong’ instrument for them. In this case, it's good to have a range of different instruments that can be played in different ways, so that everyone can participate. For example, hitting something on the beat is generally easier to do than a shaking or scraping motion, and larger percussion instruments are easier to manipulate than smaller, fiddlier ones. However, do be wary of the trap of a pupil later identifying as the one who was ‘always’ given the tambourine instead of a ‘proper’ instrument! The aim is to allow pupils to participate at their current level, while still giving them the chance to improve and progress over time. It might take some pupils longer to graduate from the tambourine than others, and that's okay – as long as they eventually move on when they are ready.
If, of course, your focus for the topic or term is learning a particular instrument, then replacing that instrument with a tambourine is not going to cut it as an adaptation! In this scenario, you will want to look for or create repertoire with differentiated parts; perhaps a piece with a main melody, a more challenging descant or harmony part, and a couple of really simple melodic and rhythmic ostinato parts, or even a drone, to provide a part suitable for everyone's capabilities. Even with undifferentiated repertoire, adaptations can be made to ensure that everyone can participate to the best of their ability. Consider allocating specific sections of a piece to different groups of pupils; for example, sectioning up a song so that some pupils only perform the chorus, while others take on the verse as well. It will be much more musically satisfying for pupils to be involved in a performance where they can be really good at their part or section, than if they're trailing through bits of it feeling self-conscious when they're not sure how it goes.
Composing
When approaching composing activities, everything that we said about resources for performing still applies: children will need an appropriate instrument for their abilities in order to create their own piece of music. In addition, we can provide adaptations to tasks so that everyone is working on the same overall outcome but at different levels. For example, the class may be working on creating a melody, with some groups asked to use more pitches in their melody than others. Similarly, some groups can be asked to add more sections or layers to their piece of music while others work within a more simple structure.
The interrelated dimensions of music, too, can provide an easy way to increase or decrease the level of challenge in a composing task. Perhaps some groups might make a feature of just one of the dimensions, while others are asked to include more, or all, of them. One of my favourite ways to encourage this is to prepare a table of questions for each group which has the interrelated dimensions of music down the left-hand column; an associated question relevant to the particular task against each in the middle column; and a tick box on the right. For example: Dynamics – Have you changed the dynamic at least once in this piece of music? Pupils can then increase the level of challenge within the task without me having to intervene, leaving me free to focus on any groups that are struggling with the task and need my support.
While streaming groups for composing does make it easier to provide adaptive teaching, I do also like to shuffle things from time to time with mixed-ability groupings. Why? Well, because it's good for children to be in a group where the musical outcome is more satisfying than what they would usually produce; this helps inspire pupils and give them something to aim for, having a positive effect on the engagement and motivation that is so important for continued progress. It also provides an extra level of challenge for the high-flyers within your class, who can be put in charge of the group to develop their teamworking and musical leadership skills!
Listening
You might consider listening to be an instantly inclusive activity, other than for those with hearing impairment. However, there is a big difference between ‘listening to music’ and ‘listening to music with concentration and understanding’, as the National Curriculum puts it. As teachers, we have to put a lot of thought and effort into helping pupils both to recognise different features within music and develop the language that they need to talk about these.
Good strategies for adapting your approach to listening activities would include providing visual aids, such as flashcards as reminders for vocabulary, and giving your pupils the option to talk to a partner about the music before answering questions from the teacher. You may also differentiate your initial expectations around language, by expecting some children to use Italian terminology such as ‘forte’ and ‘piano’ while others use ‘loud’ or ‘quiet’, until everyone in your class gains more confidence with the language of music.
Remember that discussion is not the only way to respond to a piece of music. Movement activities can help pupils to explore and show their understanding of a piece of music, even if they don't know the right words to describe it. You could show pitch changes with a rise and fall of the hands; indicate dynamics with larger or smaller movements; tap-out the rhythms in the music; or show the expressive qualities by acting out what you think the piece is about.
Notation
People tend to have very strong opinions about how stave notation should be taught. Thankfully, one thing everyone agrees on is that the best overall approach is sound-before-symbol: encountering things aurally before learning what they look like written down. Beyond this, though, opinions differ widely!
I am a firm believer that for children who are struggling with pitch notation you should write the letter names under or over the stave. This particularly makes sense when you are using instrumental resources such as glockenspiels where the letter name is physically printed on the bars! Some teachers are dead set against this approach, as they think it stops children from ever learning the correct pitch names for each stave position; but, at the end of the day, if it's the difference between them participating or not in the practical activity, which is the main point of music, then I say get your pen out!
Similarly, I find crib-sheets or display boards to be really useful tools for helping pupils work out by themselves what the signs and symbols on their music mean. If they have completely forgotten what f means, why not have a place where they can look this up independently rather than waiting for the teacher's attention to ask? This isn't ‘cheating’ but a valid strategy to help build musical knowledge over time, and ensure that all children are being supported when they need it.
Whatever skill or activity you are working on, there is one adaptive teaching strategy that is essential: teacher feedback. It is unlikely that your pupils, whatever their current level of achievement, will progress without being told what they need to do to improve. Make time in every lesson to talk with pupils about how they can change the way they do things for a more musical outcome. That way, although not everyone will be at the same level, they will all be making progress.
