Online Teaching Materials
Downloadable resources for music teachers
Teaching materials are an integral part of a music teacher's practice. Every month Music Teacher publishes downloadable materials for KS3, 4 and 5, offering complete units of work, GCSE and A Level set-work guidance, and practical ideas across all levels for both classroom and peripatetic teachers. All materials are written by experienced teachers and examiners and provide indispensable content for your teaching.
If you would like to see an example of a Teaching Material, please click here.
SubscribePlanning a KS3 programme with the new GCSEs in mind
Secondary education KS 3 Archive
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...
Edexcel GCSE AoS3: Music for stage and screen – context, analysis and creative approaches
Secondary education KS 4 Archive
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...
Creative responses to the new Edexcel GCSE set works
Secondary education KS 4 Archive
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...
AQA & OCR: John Adams
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
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...
AQA, Edexcel & OCR: Olivier Messiaen
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
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...
Unfamiliar listening in the new GCSE specifications
Secondary education KS 4 Archive
The new GCSE music specifications have ensured that all four boards now expect students to be confident listening to and appraising unfamiliar music. With three of the boards providing students with...
AQA, OCR, Edexcel & Eduqas: a Jazz Primer, Part 2
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
In part one of this two-part jazz resource (Music Teacher, March 2017), we traced how jazz evolved from humble beginnings as a folk music into being the mainstream popular music of its day. By 1945,...
OCR AoS4: Religious music of the Baroque period
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
In this resource, I give advice on how to tackle the background to the topic, recommend some online resources, and provide a ‘way in’ to the music itself, including specific works that could be...
Edexcel AS and A level AoS5: Debussy's Estampes
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
Students are studying Debussy's Estampes and the other set works in preparation for a summer Edexcel exam paper either at AS or A Level. A previous Music Teacher resource (January 2017) has already...
AQA, OCR, Edexcel & Eduqas: a Jazz Primer, part 1
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
Jazz is an important area of study for A level across several of the boards. This first part traces jazz history from its ‘raggedy’ beginnings in the 1890s through to the gloss and sophistication of...