Introduction

A New Paradigm Of Music Teachers:

I sit down to write this post after a week of isolation following a positive COVID-19 test. However, I am very fortunate that the effects of the virus were very minimal on my health and have allowed me much time for reflection and reading on the subject that I am very passionate about, Music Curriculum.

I came into music teaching coming from an unconventional background having spent 6 years as a performer on cruise ships but have managed to rack up 9 years of education experience as either a teaching assistant, cover supervisor or unqualified/qualified teacher.

My musical responsibilities on the cruise ship consisted of performing popular songs to guests on vacation. I feel this is important to highlight because the level of music theory and education that was required of me as a professional musician was more elementary than that I had learnt during my school and college years studying GCSEs and A levels. Vocational courses for Music were not an option in my school and I remember thinking at college that these types of courses would not be valued as much by Universities. Ironically, I now have a degree in Popular Music Performance.

I am currently working on my dissertation towards my MA, which is a case study on the effectiveness of the Music curriculum within secondary education. I plan on embarking on my professional doctorate journey in October.

Music education in the UK is in a 'perilous state' and it seems that little is being done by those with the power to address this situation (Savage and Barnard, 2019 p3). This is also highlighted in the recent article by Clifford (2022) proving the disadvantage gap in Music education is rife, real and quite honestly, scary. Bath, Daubney, Mackrill and Spruce’s (2020) comprehensive research proves the threat that Music education and its teachers (us) are in.

With this in mind, I turn to the KS3 National Curriculum (2013). The lack of structure and subjectivity within the KS3 curriculum has at times, forced us to look at the rigid construct of GCSE and implement them for these lower year groups (Gower, 2018). Could this be one of the many contributing factors why nationally there is very little uptake for GCSE Music?

A wave of emotions were felt after the release of the 'Model Music Curriculum' in 2019. The first, relief, a relief that maybe music was being considered and valued as an important part of a 'broad and balanced curriculum'. It feels a long time since music education had been a talking point within the Government, with the last real notable acknowledgement being the 'Wider still, and wider' document of 2012 (before I qualified as a teacher). A document where the jury is still out as its effects on the development of an inclusive Music education suitable for the 21st century.

The second I felt was that of anger, anger because it felt like this document did not resonate with the students in my current school. Worse, I felt it did not even consider that Music provision, inclusivity, accessibility and funding nationally is currently inconsistent across the nation (ACE, 2020). After the release of this document, how is it that we are still so out of touch with proven effective pedagogies such as personalised learning and informal learning that we still look back to Cooksey and Welch's (1998) notion that the curriculum is irrelevant to many students that opt into our subject? We should be looking at the Music curriculum and calling these ideas outdated and wrong, instead, we (music teachers) find ourselves agreeing with Cooksey and Welch (1998) but doing very little about it.

So how do we….. Music teachers elicit this change?

Music education is changing in HE, I was able to study Folk and Traditional Music as a degree, before switching to Popular Music Performance in my final years as mentioned earlier (10 years ago). Attitudes towards culture, identity and popular Music in academia has changed and is changing. We as teachers, facilitators of learning and mediators of curriculum, need now, more than ever to recognise this and move with the times.

ACE 2020. Let’s Create, Strategy 2020-2030. Arts Council England.

BATH, N., DAUBNEY, A., MACKRILL, D. and SPRUCE, G., 2020. The declining place of music education in schools in England. Children & Society, 34(5), pp.443-457.

COOKSEY, J. M. & WELCH, G. F. 1998. Adolescence, singing development and national curricula design. British Journal of Music Education, 15, 99-119

CLIFFORD, H., 2022. Music had second highest disadvantage gap across GCSEs in 2020, report finds. [online] Music Teacher. Available at: <https://www.musicteachermagazine.co.uk/news/article/music-had-second-highest-disadvantage-gap-across-gcses-in-2020-report-finds> [Accessed 13 February 2022].

DFE 2013. Music programmes of study: key stage 3, National Curriculum in England.

GOWER A., 2018. KS3 as preparation for GCSE. [online] Rhinegold.co.uk. Available at: <https://www.rhinegold.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/MT0818-scheme-KS3-KS3-as-prep-for-GCSE-Music.pdf> [Accessed 13 February 2022].

OFSTED 2019b. Education inspection framework (EIF). In: OFSTED (ed.).

OFSTED, O. 2012. Music in schools: wider still, and wider.

SAVAGE, J. & BARNARD, D. 2019. The state of play: A review of music education in England 2019. Musicians Union.