Teaching music in primary schools PDF
Preview Teaching music in primary schools
A01.QXD 25/6/08 11:34 Page i Practical Handbooks Achieving QTS Teaching Music in Primary Schools A01.QXD 25/6/08 11:34 Page ii A01.QXD 25/6/08 11:34 Page iii Practical Handbooks Achieving QTS Teaching Music in Primary Schools Patrick Jones and Christine Robson A01.QXD 25/6/08 11:34 Page iv First published in 2008 by Learning Matters Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Learning Matters. © 2008 Learning Matters Ltd British Library Cataloguing in Publicatio n Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978 1 84445 141 8 The rights of Patrick Jones and Christine Robsonto be identified as the Authors of this Work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Cover design by Topics Text design by Code 5 Design Associates Ltd Project management by Deer Park Productions, Tavistock Typeset by Pantek Arts Ltd, Maidstone, Kent Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow Learning Matters Ltd 33 Southernhay East Exeter EX1 1NX Tel: 01392 215560 [email protected] www.learningmatters.co.uk A01.QXD 25/6/08 11:34 Page v Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 1 An overview 4 2 Key musical skills – Listening and appraising 20 3 Key musical skills – Performancing using the voice 35 4 Key musical skills – Performing using instruments and other sound-makers in the classroom 50 5 Key musical skills – Creativity through composing 65 6 Progression in children’s musical learning 88 7 Music across the curriculum 112 8 Organisation, planning, assessment and extra-curricular music 132 v A01.QXD 25/6/08 11:34 Page vi Contents Glossary 153 Appendices 157 Appendix 1: Lesson or unit of work templates 157 Appendix 2: How to count in at the beginning of a song 159 Appendix 3: Additional songs for Chapters 3 and 5 161 Appendix 4: Resources 163 Appendix 5: CD audio recordings 165 Appendix 6: Referencing to the Professional Standards for QTS 167 Appendix 7: Referencing to Every Child Matters 171 Index 173 vi A01.QXD 25/6/08 11:34 Page vii Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank all of those primary trainee teachers on the BA and post- graduate courses over the years who have inspired or contributed classroom stories. Special thanks are due to Manor Park Primary in Cheshire for permission to take photo- graphs of music making in the school but also to the Key Stage 1 team for classroom case studies. Thanks are due to Delph Primary School and St Hugh’s C of E Primary School for the contribution about instrumental music and choir work in their school. vii A01.QXD 25/6/08 11:34 Page viii A01.QXD 25/6/08 11:34 Page 1 Introduction Why would you be reading this book? You are probably already well into your teacher training/education programme. Music may only have a small general place in your undergraduate or postgraduate programme but you may see it as one of a range of foundation subjects that you would like to focus on at this time. Your programme may additionally offer music within options, electives and/or specialisms or you may have encountered it through some cross-curricular experience and observed it being taught in school. However, you have experienced music you now wish to have more secure knowledge, understanding and skills. In this book we acknowledge the very varied musi- cal backgrounds that trainees will have and present a range of basic know-how, snapshots of good practice and exercises in self-development to enable you to acquire the understanding, knowledge and skills you need to teach music in a primary school or Early Years setting with some confidence. Firstly, you will need to review the part that music plays in your own life as the basis on which to build. REFLECTIVETASK REFLECTIVETASK Learning objective: To have begun a process of self-auditing by recalling your own musical experience. Make notes on the following. • Is listening to music an important activity for you and is it largely solitary or do you ever go to events, con- certs or clubs to hear music? • Do you listen to or experience music as part of events that you attend for other purposes? • Are you knowledgeable about styles of music? • Do you take part in any music making, as a player, singer, technician or dancer? • Now consider how these experiences could be starting points for working musically with children. • What are your musical areas for development? Most adults experience music through listening to recordings. Some may sing informally (e.g. at football matches) or formally (e.g. in church) and yet others may have continued the school experience of playing and singing in amateur music groups. A few will have written songs or belong to a group that creates its own music. However, these three types of musical activity embody three of the core skills of the music curriculum: listen- ing, performing and composing. By undertaking the self-auditing process above you will find that you do have expertise in some area of music and this is the point on which to build your music-teaching confidence. However, you will also bring a particular attitude to teaching music that can help or hinder your practice. 1 A01.QXD 25/6/08 11:34 Page 2 Introduction The emotional baggage that you carry associated with music education in your past may be negative and if so this needs to be jettisoned through the skill building exercises and positive images of music teaching that follow. REFLECTIVETASK REFLECTIVETASK Learning objective: You will have recalled your own musical experience and established a personal view of what ‘being musical’ means. Summarise your own music education experience under headings of positive and negative. Consider carefully the positive aspects and how you may apply those features in your own approach to teaching music. Finally summarise what you believe being musical means especially in relation to teaching in school. The conventions for written music used in this book You may well not be a fluent reader of music notation and you may not have very much musical experience. On the other hand you may be a very competent performer. Some performers may not use notation; some others may have a little knowledge of notation; and yet others will have used notation when playing an instrument at school. In order to address the different needs we will use three different systems of notation. For rhythms without pitch we will use a simple rhythm notation convention first used by the Hungarian music teacher and composer Zoltán Kodály and hope that non-readers can pick this up fairly quickly. We will generally keep to simple rhythms made up of two note values: (cid:2) Whole notes notated as and (cid:2) Half-notes notated (in a pair) as A useful way of remembering these is to call whole notes ‘tea’ and two half-notes ‘coffee’. For songs or melodies we will use two systems. The first will be letter names of notes by the words they apply to, for example in this Ghanaian song: f f f f f f a a g d d d d d f c c c c c c Fun-gee a-la-fi-a | ashe ashe-e | Fun-ge a-la-fi-a ashe ashe - | This conveys some of the contour of the melody also. 2
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