MT Magazine Article - The Use Of Choice To Build A Relevant KS3 Curriculum

The Use Of Choice To Build A Relevant KS3 Curriculum 

It is never easy to judge or anticipate how well a new unit of work will be received by a particular cohort of students. It sometimes seems that no matter how many hours of planning you put into ‘the perfect sequence of lessons’, there are mitigating factors and unexpected curve balls that derail our thought process and shake our confidence. It is also frustrating that schemes of carefully thought out planning need revisiting so much and so often to make them accessible and suitable for the new musical demographic that is coming into our classroom. Students have varied and diverse musical experiences as they enter the room and how do we, as teachers, cater for that?

This article talks about my experience and research with choice and

why I think it is important that we use this option as a powerful planning tool to aid the design of curriculum to empower and inspire our students. 

The national numbers for KS4 are dwindling and fears amongst teachers about the stability of expressive arts in the curriculum are worryingly real. Alarmingly the provision for expressive arts nationally has dwindled with some secondary schools only delivering music once or twice a year at KS3. The recent national plan for music has gone some way in trying to address this but without it being a statutory document, we rely on the values and experiences of the school leaders to include our much needed subjects in the schools curriculum vision. It is with this in mind that surely some change would be beneficial to kickstart and revitalise the music curriculum at KS3. This could be a change in curriculum content, pedagogy and delivery or intent and aims. There is an understanding that we are battling larger infrastructures and attitudes towards the arts, but, is there something we as teachers should be doing to try and counteract this? 

Exploration of Choice

Music is a hugely personal thing, and post covid it has become more and more difficult for students to open up, the mental health issues seem to have become a larger influence on what we as teachers deal with on a day-to-day basis. Countless times students have refused to answer the question of ‘what are you listening to?’ because they think someone will laugh or judge them. But this subjectivity of music is something that could and should be celebrated, studied and explored musically. Never has been more prominent and relevant than Fleischfressers tweets about the music department being a place of nurture and well-being. Maybe this is our starting point?

My favourite moment over the past 12 months has been when I have been exploring the element of choice with students and within tasks that I have set in the classroom. To clarify, I am not suggesting for one second that students will get free reign over the musical pieces they listen to and learn all of the time but I feel that the choice could accompany another task. Listening tasks are where I, as a practitioner, have struggled in the past to get meaningful answers from students. How do they become more relevant and educational to our students and not just another arduous task for them to complete?

My first port of call was to look back at responses from listening tasks that I had previously given to students and the responses (or lack of) that they gave. The responses varied from ‘I dunno’ to ‘N/A’; one student even said ‘why does it matter?’.  An interesting set of data.  I then asked the same questions (which were about dynamics and texture) to the students but gave them a choice of song or tune that they wanted to listen to.  The responses turned out to be far more musical and meaningful and students seemed to remember the terminology the next week. Choice had allowed them to link musical learning to real life experiences, nothing new or innovative I know and something that the musical futures model set out to do in its early days. The following few lessons my starter activity was to answer a set of questions on their choice of song, share a few answers in a discussion and then we would do a listening task as a class with songs that I had chosen. These songs gave a diverse repertoire of listening to our students. We then revisited the students' songs and applied the knowledge learnt from the group task.

This approach was not without its challenges and it was learnt very quickly that expectations around suitable listening content for the classroom were established, this was an enjoyable class discussion and collectively we agreed on some ground rules for the choice that they would be making.

I wanted to explore and experiment with choices further within lessons. I went down the route of offering the three musical strands in lessons; performing/rehearsing, composing and listening/appraising. For these strands I chose a task and used an assignment brief similar to those seen in the vocational specifications at KS4. Students engaged with this well towards the end of KS3 and seemed appreciative with the level of trust given to them. Interestingly the majority of the students chose the instrumental and playing route, but that is for another article.  Year 7’s seemed to struggle because they needed some more experience of applying musical knowledge and gaining the necessary skills. Again, this is not something that is sustainable all of the time but potentially good to implement in a particular term and sometimes even a one-off lesson. Potentially a good tool to have in your arsenal when building the all important relationships with a class.

Controlled student choice in my limited experience has led to an increase in numbers at KS4 and further exploration, research and practice is something that I will continue to do as I dive deeper into my EdD. This approach could potentially have more impact over time, as our demographics change, students musical experiences differ and we change as teachers.

Final Thoughts

To many the element of choice in curriculum decision is nothing new, and we naturally as teachers want to find a ‘way-in’ with our students to build a positive and professional relationship. I truly believe this is easier in music because of how personal and vulnerable it can leave you feeling.

With this in mind, I ask you to consider these questions; where could choice fit and suit your current curriculum design? When could choice be used to deepen musical understanding and engage students? How could you successfully empower students to help enhance your current provision?