Dr J's Emporium of Musical Education

Thanks to the good weather that the UK has experienced this summer, I was fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time in the saddle cycling around Scotland.  During these trips I got to considering how I was approaching the many challenges that appeared around almost every bend, namely hills!  In cycling there are two main approaches to climbing a hill – spinning and grinding and, while both have merits, everyone has their own preference. In layman’s terms, spinning is where the cyclist selects a lower, easier gear and pedals faster, although it can be tiring after a while.  Grinding on the other hand is where a higher gear is chosen, and the cyclists has a slower cadence but has to put more effort into turning the pedals. Many cyclists when they first start are grinders, and stop when tired or the incline is too steep, awhereas most pro cyclists will opt for spinning to keep the cadence (of their pedalling) more consistent.  This yea...

I have signed up to take part in a staff peer mentoring scheme at school.  This was all well and good (a bit of peer mentoring can be a great thing in helping validate how great we are as educators), but when I was asked what I would like the focus to be, while I admit that there is always areas of improvement, I was stuck for an exact area to develop.  As a solution to this the mentoring coordinator suggested that he might come in and video a lesson and then we could see what develops from there.   Of course the lesson we had arranged for the videoing to take place in was on a day where the HoD was bedridden with man flu (actually it might have been proper flu as nothing usually slows him down)!  This meant I was having to get cover work sorted for his classes, briefing the cover teacher and starting the lesson.  Even with these beginnings and rushing about, on reviewing the video I realised the area that I really needed to work on with my own class was...

Presently, for the spring term my Year 7 class are studying Baroque and Classical Music, while my Year 8 class are happily ploughing through the Romantic period. I always start these projects off with a keyboard performance module that then morphs into a class performance on several instruments.  These bits work fine with both year groups.  The bits that the students have always struggled with has been learning the historical elements.  We in the department have tried the old 'death by powerpoint' approach, and mind mapping, but it has never been satisfactory as the bright kids end up waiting for the others to catch up, while the ones who are still working on improving their language acquisition (96% of our students are EAL - some to the point that English is their fourth or fifth language) or have SEN requirements have struggled. Having been doing a lot of reading about differentiation, listening to webinars and picking peoples brains at school, I thought I would tr...

While I would like to say that I am tech savvy and keep up with all that is new, in reality I am always a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to embracing new stuff, and generally hold off purchasing 'the latest thing' for quite a while (usually until about 3 months before the next latest thing is launched!).  Thus it has been with Facebook, iPhone, Macs, the smart watch, and most recently, Twitter. I finally joined the Twittersphere last year as a colleague recommended it as a great source of CPD and advice for teachers.  After an initial false start (some scumbag had got my email address blocked after using it as a spam address), I set up my account and waited for all the followers to hang on my every word.  While I waited (and still am) on this multitude to materialise, I decided to research others who I could follow, and while doing this came across @TeacherToolkit .  Not only does this feed direct you to resources that you can download, but it also has the 1 m...

So, San Francisco may now be coming an ever distant memory, but the ideas that were sown there are starting to show signs of growing. Over the last half term I have been trying out ideas and adapting old lessons, some more successfully than others, and I must admit that it has changed a lot of the ways I look at teaching music.  For a start, games are becoming more important, especially when teaching rhythm work.  Once they are over their initial reservations the students seem to enjoy these, especially if there is an element of competition. I have also noticed that I am more prone to start with singing - and are more confident in doing so - with instruments and movement then being used as accompaniments to this.  Indeed, having started the Year 3/4 choir off with four African songs, instead of the students just singing, we have stick games going on, xylophone accompaniments and now, at the suggestion of one of the kids, the dreaded ukuleles might be making an app...

STEM.  STEAM.  STREAM.  C21st Competencies.  Whole School Curriculum Focus.  EAL Focused Learning.  Assessment is for Learning. STEM.  STEAM. STREAM.... (and repeat ad infinitum)..... Our school is presently on a drive to change it's focus from a perceived position of content driven learning to the all singing and dancing process focused C21st Learning.  This new drive is obviously an absolute pain as it means changing everything, redesigning the wheel and ultimately becoming the teacher that we never wanted to be.  Or does it? I have always been aware that as a teacher I tend to be fairly set in my ways and have been influenced by: How I was taught at school and university; How I personally learn (I come from a family of very competitive Trivial Pursuits players mean I am good at picking up factoids), and; How I was initially shown during teacher training. I am sure other teachers also view change with suspicion, but having star...