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BRIDGING THE GAP
Chapter One -The Beginning
This dissertation is a description of how I as a music teacher, intended to try and get closer to
knowing how my year nine students feel about music and their music lessons. I wanted to be able
to revitalize their music lessons by updating a small part of the year nine curriculum in order to
enable me to motivate my students more. I wanted to improve the negative attitude that some of my
year nine students have towards music lessons. This negativity is demonstrated particularly in the
months shortly after they have gone through the GCSE options process, and the majority have
decided not to study music at GCSE level. Particularly, I also wanted to bridge the gap between the
interests that my pupils have in todays pop music and the knowledge that I have of classical music
and popular music, which I know my pupils regard as old hat. These thought processes had
mulled around in my head for more than two years.
I can remember teaching a group of year 9 pupils during the summer term of that year (2003), my
NQT year. I did not write any sort of journal entry at the time, but the comments by a year nine
class hit home and I began to doubt whether my subject was relevant to them by this stage. I have
never forgotten the feeling of inadequacy I had at the time. I had started a project with year nine
pupils on music for the moving image. We watched several film clips and replaced the original
music with something unsuitable, something that was opposite to the mood than was originally
intended. The most interesting of these was the clip from Pretty Woman when the character played
by Richard Gere is talking to the hotel manager about his dinner reservation with the character
played by Julia Roberts. The original music, a rather slushy and sentimental score intending to
represent the restaurant piano player, was replaced with another piece. This piece of music was the
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shower murder scene music from Psycho. The whole mood of the film clip was changed implying
that the Richard Gere character was in fact, hatching a plot to kill the Julia Roberts character. This
was supposed to demonstrate to the pupils how film music was there to enhance and define the
mood of the visual image. Getting some response from some of the pupils was impossible and a
group of girls had quite decided not to do anything at all. When I asked Why? they answered (my
words) This is all such a waste of time, we dont know why we have to do music now when we
know we havent chosen it for GCSE, and its not useful.
I was nearly speechless but tried to defend my subject as best I could. I realise now, with a couple
of more years of experience that I would be able to deal with the situation better. But quite frankly
at the time I did not know what to do. This is what has prompted me to improve my content,
delivery and techniques for year nine pupils.
I can remember feeling very frustrated at the time. In reality the pupils were behaving pretty badly
and I should have sanctioned this particular group for calculated idleness a type one
misdemeanour, on the schools blue slip system. I did not however, as they were not being rowdy
or a nuisance in any other way. So I left them alone and taught the pupils who were trying to
access the work. This situation has stayed with me ever since and I have vowed not to let it happen
again. I feel in retrospect that I should have taken more action and that I took the easy way out.
There has, mercifully, never been an occasion since, when pupils have flatly refused to do work.
However, I am always conscious of a proportion of the class who regard some of the tasks I set
them, irrelevant to their needs and try to do as little as possible, which sometimes ends up with
them being disruptive. This of course can impact on the whole class so that even those pupils who
are wanting to progress, are prevented from doing so, because my time may be taking up in dealing
with bad behaviour.
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This year I have felt that overall, the attitude and general behaviour of the year nine classes is
better than I have known before. I have asked myself, is it because I have a little more experience
with this group? Or is it that they are indeed a better behaved set?
During the time I was trying to finalise the topic for my dissertation, I gave my two colleagues in
the music department, a short questionnaire. My feelings about the behaviour of the current year
nine groups prompted me to ask questions about their attitudes to this years cohort. Appendix
Both colleagues have been teaching for about 10 years. I will refer to them as A and B.
One question I asked in the questionnaire was;
Have the attitudes of year nine pupils to music altered during your teaching career?
A replied;
Yes on the whole they have improved in behaviour
I got a fuller answer from B;
In some ways. The majority still work well and enjoy the subject, some wish to
move on to GCSE style work early, and others see it as an irrelevance. I do feel
that there is less not bothered, giving it up soon than my other experiences, but
Im not sure if it is down to my teaching or an ever expanding mandatory KS4curriculum
It is interesting to note that B has also wondered if his teaching techniques may have something to
do with the difference in attitude. Both colleagues have expressed a desire for updating the
curriculum for year nine.
I asked;
What strategies do you have for maintaining the interest of year nine pupils in music?
Their answers both contained the word funand the use of the phrase from B; contemporary
music and from A: modern styles.
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These answers both reflect a conversation I had with a boy in year nine last year.
Journal Entry Fun;
Whilst queuing outside for their lesson, a year 9 boy asked what are we doing
today. We will be on the keyboards I replied. Great! he said but doesnt thatmean that we have done all the fun things this term and that the rest of the year
wont be? (We spent the first half term using computers to sequence in some
music, which they all enjoyed)He obviously equates anything outside the normal classroom as fun
Why cant there be fun when working in the classroom environment as well?
Something I will have to pursue (November 9th 2005).
The music department is also exploring qualifications other than GCSE to discover if their
inclusion in the curriculum may be feasible. I had intended to include this search within the remit
of this study. Unfortunately I feel that to do a feasibility study in this area justice, would require a
much greater time span than I have, so I have chosen leave this for another time. Nevertheless this
exploration is ongoing in the department from now and I may be able to transfer some of the ideas
and teaching methods that are suggested into my own teaching style.
It is difficult to ascertain precisely what ones teaching style is, but I feel that my
approaches are probably rooted in my upbringing and education. With this in mind, in the
following chapter I explore aspects of my biography both familial and educational.
The following chapter is a fairly detailed biography that sets out to demonstrate my roots
and how they have made me the person and more importantly in this context, the teacher I
am today.
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Chapter Two - Biography
I have written the whole dissertation in the first person and I was urged to be aware of the self
within the whole writing process. Therefore I needed to know who this self is. What is it that has
made me the person I am now? Why do I have the outlook that I have? Was my outlook changed
by events that I examined and was part of? It is impossible to stand outside oneself, but I hope by
exploring my background that I can identify the influences that have shaped me.My tutor has
referred to this construction of the self as a bag of selves. I have to explore my background to
begin to look at some of the experiences that have made me the person I am.
I know myself enough to know that my education, career to date, working surroundings and
indeed my formative family years have been fairly conformist in nature and I know I have found it
strange when I come across people who do not conform. Originally I wrote that I can be intolerant
about non conformists within this sentence, but writing a sentence about intolerance made me
sound stern, unforgiving and many other negative adjectives. I hope I am not any of those things.
My feelings about myself are that I am friendly and able to get on well with my peers and students.
I feel I have good interpersonal skills as Gardner (1983) describes in his multiple intelligences
(Moon & Shelton Mayes, p 43).The strangeness that I refer to is being in a situation where I meet
pupils who are not so lucky to have had a comfortable, safe and secure childhood. I know that
some of the pupils I teach are not brought up as I was to respect authority. They are possibly
resentful rather than respectful of authority. I know that I been very fortunate throughout my life. I
had a loving family who were delighted with my musical talent and supported my progress when
possibly they could not afford to. I went to a good school, studied part time at a prestigious
musical conservatoire (Royal Manchester College of Music) from the age of nine. After I had
completed my A levels I trained as a piano accompanist at the Royal Northern College of Music
(RNCM) 1973-1977, gaining my first degree. My career after the RNCM was as an accompanist
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for singers and musicians. I would be required to play for auditions, rehearsals and concerts, for
anyone who would care to pay me. Fairly quickly into my career, I became that strange creature,
the ballet pianist. My first professional job was as Company Pianist with the Northern Ballet
Theatre. This involved touring England to various theatres playing for rehearsals and performances
and the daily ballet class, where my skills as an improvising musician were honed and developed.
This ability to improvise kept me fed over the next 24 years as I continued to accompany
musicians and dancers. I began to work for the Northern Ballet School, a further education college
for professional dancers and dance teachers, and became Head of Music. My role was that of
accompanist for all types of classes, rehearsals, performances and examinations. I was also asked
to create a course of music appreciation classes for dancers and this is where my first experience of
teaching was gained. In 1983 I acquired my City and Guilds Further Education Teaching
Certificate as I realised I needed some teacher training. I continued to teach and play at the school
eventually developing a curriculum in line with the governments Dance and Drama awards for
students. It was at this point that I realised that the teaching I did, meant more to me than my
playing and prompted me to take advantage of the governments generous payment of six thousand
pounds to study for my PGCE in music teaching, at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU).
I write this detail about my career to demonstrate that although I am from humble beginnings
myself, I had, probably due to my musical education and career up to this point, been in rather an
elitist environment.
It therefore came as a culture shock to me when I walked into my Base A (2001) placement
during my PGCE and I had to try to control the effers and jeffers who had no respect for
authority, this was incidentally a good school in the middle of Cheshire. I appreciate that some of
the pupils I encounter have extremely difficult backgrounds whether through poverty or simply
family situations. This part of society is something I had not encountered before. These pupils can
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sometimes be the most rewarding to teach, but I have not found it easy. I have also had to
encounter pupils who can barely read or write, something I had definitely not encountered before
mainstream teaching. I have in fact begun to appreciate how useful music lessons can be to some
of these pupils. They may be able to succeed just as much as their more able peers in creating
music.
Sometimes though it has been disappointing to prepare a lesson and have it received with apathy
because the pupils may have initially perceived my musical examples or the topic as boring. I
have never been less than enthusiastic about my subject. However I need to be able to reach and
excite pupils in my subject and open their ears to music that they may not have not heard before.
I have been married for 22 years to a man who is neither a professional musician nor a teacher. In
many ways this has been a blessing as I have been able to leave my job outside the front door. He
found my life as a musician very bizarre. The fact that someone could be paid to make music I
think was a quite peculiar concept. He made my career change possible as he was able to support
the family financially. My jump to mainstream education has made him even more bewildered, he
says I now talk in a completely different language and use many more long words (and expletives!)
than I used to. However he is still very supportive and has been useful as a proof reader. Over the
years he has supported me in my career and helped me bring up our two daughters now aged 20
and 18. The girls have been subjected to lots of music making in our house. They have also had to
listen to me practising some pieces of music, which even I found a bit odd. They did the usual
piano, violin and flute lessons that children do, but neither had the desire to make a career in that
direction. Probably a good thing because a career in the arts can be difficult and not always very
well paid. They now fill the house with their own music and advise me what is current and what is
not.
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I need now to describe in detail my educational background because this obviously has a bearing
on my present outlook. I passed my 11 plus and went to an all girls grammar school, complete with
gabardine and berets! However, that is not to say I was the perfect student at school, I was not.
Those subjects I found easy, I excelled in and those I did not, I was lazy in. I was also a chatterbox
and often in trouble for it. I also joined the smoking in the loos set. Big mistake! I only joined in
to be one of the crowd and did not finally shake the habit until I was in my 20s. Here is an example
of peer pressure that adolescents find themselves in, and of myself trying to find an identity within
the group I considered to be attractive. (I write about this identity formation in chapter 13.)
Nevertheless, despite these aberrations, I was and still am very respectful of authority and I would
never have dreamt of being overtly rude to a member of staff, be they head teacher or cleaner.
In reflecting on my story so far, I can see a pattern emerging in my writing. I keep referring to
respect. I obviously hold this in high esteem. Do I want to be respected so badly? I have just
finished reading Lynn Trusss book (2005), Talk to the Hand. She refers to the world changing
and that people do not respect each other any more, but just respect the belongings or stuff that
they own. She talks about the end of deference and that in deference to is out of respect for; in
consideration of (2005.154) I fully concur with her thinking. I mean by this statement that I feel
that there is much less consideration of other peoples points of view and that society in general
has become very selfish. Maybe I am just very old fashioned. I include these statements to
highlight how I feel that many pupils in school do generally not defer to authority, they are not
frightened to challenge and confront and are unhappy if they feel that their immediate needs are
not being met.
Since leaving MMU I have been working in a very large comprehensive school with a sixth form
and I am now into my fourth year of teaching. I have found, to my surprise that I enjoy working
with the much younger end of the school much more than I thought I would, having worked in a
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post sixteen environment for so long. I enjoy the enthusiasm that Year Seven and Year Eight
students have for music generally.
I am acutely aware however, that there is quite a large proportion of the Year Nine students that I
teach who lost their enthusiasm for music and see it as an irrelevance to them and of no help to
their future career. I want to improve my practice with these students and feel that trying to
approach music teaching using more popular music styles and methods may achieve the results I
wish. This is that students in year nine continue to enjoy music right through to the end of Key
Stage Three and gain some skills in some of the other things music lessons can offer, alongside
purely those of theory and practical musicianship.
I think it is fairly clear that my career has been very classically biased. Although my subject
knowledge in this area is very firm, I nevertheless have had to get to grips straightaway with World
Music and the popular music that the government include in the National Curriculum (NC, 1988).
These are areas I am not so familiar with, and I have been on a steep learning curve ever since. I
know I do not have a wide knowledge of popular music. When I was in my teenage years, those
years when many of my contemporaries were out buying the latest chart albums, I was probably
purchasing the latest recording of Mozart piano sonatas by Alfred Brendel. I make no excuses; it is
just where my interest lay at the time. I did have a brief crush on Justin Hayward of the Moody
Blues and obtained some of their albums and had their posters on my bedroom wall, but this was a
short-lived departure from my classical diet.
As part of my career as an accompanist and dance accompanist I had to learn to play in a jazz style
and occasionally I had to reproduce popular music on the piano, but this is no substitute for
listening to Radio One or watching Top of the Pops regularly. Therefore since becoming a
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Secondary school teacher, I have had to broaden my purview considerably and have been on a
huge learning curve. I have had to quickly address the deficiency in my knowledge of popular
music in order to teach the listening paper of AS Music Technology. This involves questions on
the genres and recording techniques of popular music alongside the more familiar territory of
musical analysis, both aural and written. However, music is music, and the basic concepts do not
change. In fact the more I know, the more I can relate popular styles to those of many years and
indeed centuries ago. It is not that I dislike popular music. However I do not favour any particular
genre over another but I enjoy what I feel is good well constructed music be it reggae, rap or heavy
metal. Like any other listener I enjoy something that is entertaining, catchy and enjoyable. My
difficulty is that I do not have that instant catalogue recall of who recorded what song when.
I really feel that trying to approach music teaching using more popular music styles and methods
may begin to achieve the results I wish. I want the pupils to have ownership of their learning
and become independent learners. There is an educational phrase or two of note! Music
lessons, as I discuss in chapter six Music as a Subject in School, use an approach that
constantly gives the opportunity for students to develop these independent learning skills.
So I need to decide what I am going to do to achieve my goals to change the curriculum a little
and to update my approach. Although I do appreciate that not everything will have a happy
ending or that this will be a victory narrative as my tutor describes. I hope I will be able to
judge at the end of this exactly what I have achieved.
It is important that I look beyond my own thoughts and explore how other teachers respond to
situations like my own. The following chapter looks at some research and writings that offer some
similar thoughts and ideas to the ones I am having.
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The Outside World
I have discovered, by accessing a selection of educational journals, that there are other music
teachers in the profession who feel the same way I do. There have been research projects which
contain some of the same questions I am asking. It appears there is a consensus amongst music
teachers not only in this country, but also world wide, that this particular age group are feeling that
music lessons are not for them. Studies have been done over many years. As far back as 1968 a
survey Young School Leavers was made by the Schools Council. According to pupils questioned
then, music was judged to be an irrelevancy in their school experience. The Schools Council
concluded at this time that music teachers needed to develop new ways of working (Schools
Council, 1968). It appears that there has been a problem of relevancy within the music classroom
for some time now and that I am not alone in wanting to bridge the gap as the title of my
dissertation states. The following writers give examples of how they researched the attitudes of
pupils within music classrooms and some of the ideas that they had to improve their pupils
perceptions of music.
The study completed by North et al (2000), investigates exactly why adolescents listen to and
perform music, this focussed specifically on year nine pupils. Reference in this report is made to
music lessons that are less appropriate and engaging to secondary pupils (ibid, 2000:256). The
report cites data collected in the USA on the extent of musical consumption by teenagers. One
question in the American study asked why students listened to music and the answers were as
follows: relieve tension, distract themselves from worries, help pass the time and relieve
boredom (ibid, 2000:257).This prompted me to include a question in a questionnaire to my pupils
asking why they listen to music. North et al (2000) also discovered that the music that the
adolescents chose became a means of forming their identities. This construction of an identity
through music choices is a very interesting concept.
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I wrote a journal entry about my own identity;
Journal Entry musical identity March 2006
Do I have a musical identity? If you had asked me last week I would have
said No however having researched and read around the subject inreference to my students, I have begun to realise that I have. In fact I
probably have more than one identity depending on whether you are friend,
family, former colleague or present pupil.
If you asked my friends and family they would say that I liked all sorts of
music and although I favour classical music I do like and enjoy jazz and
pop. My pupils would probably say that I am classical musician and that
my identity was sensible and ordinary.
They are quite surprised therefore when I say that I like a certain piece of
pop music. Do you miss? they ask, obviously intrigued that I can like
something that they do.
What my musical identity does not do, unlike my pupils, is to influence theway I dress. Or does it? I wonder. My musical tastes are fairly catholic in
both fields of classical music and popular styles. However, I probably only
like popular music that is well known and fairly mainstream. I consider that
I dress in a fairly classic way. Nothing startling, nothing wacky. I fit in!
Does that mean that I have an identity?
I think it probably means I do. I dress fairly conservatively, and definitely unfashionably,
particularly in school. Therefore I most probably present an image that is not fashionable to
my students but acceptable to them as my persona of a teacher. On the other hand if I tried to
dress in the way my students do, I would not only look ridiculous, but I think I would put off
my students. I may look as though I wanted to encroach on their territory. A member of staff
in my school calls teachers who try to do this, and he says he has known quite a few, as
blenders. He feels that members of staff should not try to be a students friend, but should
maintain a professional distance. I agree with his point of view that in you can be friendly
towards your students but not necessarily their friend. Pupils can be distrustful of adults who
try to cross that particular line.
Having given my own musical identity some thought, I feel that I need to ask my pupils
whether they think that they have a musical identity. I did not include this question in the first
questionnaire that I gave them which asked students questions about their attitudes to music
lessons and their own tastes, but I included it in questionnaire number two and also held a
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discussion on the question of identity with some students. I write in more detail about this
data in a later a chapter.
The study by North et al (2000) provided some very useful material which helped give me
some ideas from which to construct my first questionnaire for my students.(Appendix)
Interestingly the researchers gave the pupils a questionnaire under test conditions, ensuring
that the pupils did not speak to each other. This is an idea that I also adopted because I
wanted the pupils to have the opportunity to express their own thoughts and not be
influenced by the answers proffered by their friends
In her study of Polish high school students, Szubertowska (2000) found that Music and Art
were not compulsory subjects in the country at the time. The author only studied those pupils
who had chosen to study music past level one. She has taken note of other empirical studies
to assume that adolescents glean their music from family environment and their peer group.
She also assumes that their level of achievement in music is determined by pupils positive
approach and by the music teachers competence and interests. Lastly she conjectures that
the music to which adolescents are exposed, serves several different functions in their lives.
Popular music helped with mood regulation, helped to forget troubles. She found
interestingly that classical music served to mainly calm young people down and helped
stimulate reflection. Both types of music provided background for daydreaming. (ibid,
2000:326)
These assumptions are not surprising and are almost exactly the same as the assumptions that
I have myself. The research was also very concerned whether the influence of the family is
related to the musical skills of the pupils. Although this is not an area that I shall be
pursuing in any detail, it would be an interesting subject for further research. Does the family
or the peer group influence the choices of music that the pupils listen to more?
I received some interesting answers during my discussion with some pupils (see chapter13).
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Harland et al (2000) reported on the effects and effectiveness of arts education in schools in
England and Wales. The report showed that some pupils in the secondary age range did not
hold music in very high esteem at least over the period of the study during 2000 and possibly
beyond. The lack of perceived development of key skills in the classroom and lack of
perceived relevance to pupils' current and future needs. seems to have contributed to the
attitudes of the pupils. Also, it was noted that levels of enjoyment in music decline
significantly during key stage three years. This decline of enjoyment in turn impacted on the
low numbers opting for music at key stage four, which made music, as Harland et al (2000:
5) state, 'vulnerable': This scenario is exactly what I have observed in my own school. It is
the perceived relevance that needs highlighting; I am in no doubt that music lessons in
school give pupils far more skills than those that focus on musical performance. I expand on
this in the chapter Advocating for Music. Although the report by Harland et al was written
in 2000 I feel that it is still applicable today.
A quantitative piece of research by Lamont et al (2003) seeks to answer some of the
questions that I have my self. It does not however just focus on the attitudes and performance
of year nine pupils but seeks to trace these attitudes and performances from transition from
primary school right through KS3. It does not offer much in advice for improvement of these
attitudes. Their findings state that more than half of the boys and girls enjoyed music lessons
particularly the playing of musical instruments. One point raised was that in general pupils
would like more variety in their music lessons, the opportunity to try new skills (including
DJ-ing and music technology), and to learn about their own styles of music.(ibid, 2003:8)
I will be very surprised if my own students would differ greatly if they answered this
question. One surprising result of this survey was that very few pupils want to stop doing
music before the end of KS3 but rather regard their lessons as a diversion from their more
academic studies.
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An observation of a year eight class and their teacher was undertaken over a period of two
terms by Finney (2003). The author states that year eight is an uneventful year
between the newness of high school to year seven and the educational testing in year
nine. I recognize many of the same situations that I find myself in, the topics he
discusses are very similar; the attitudes of the pupils are very comparable. The
comments of the pupils are enlightening; the pupils appreciated teachers who talked
with them and not at them. They liked teachers who were fair, knew their pupils and
set tasks accordingly. These comments are not at all surprising and apply to every
subject in school. What I particularly enjoyed was that the teacher, who was
observed, was always trying to teach in a very encouraging manner, something we all
aspire to. He also had on occasions defended his subject successfully to other staff in
his school. One of the authors final comments was at the end of the study the teacher
had maintained GCSE music as a core provision and some 25% of his pupils had
chosen to continue into KS4. He is obviously doing something right. In my school
the percentage is lower. At the moment the take up at my school is roughly ten
percent. Whilst this low take up may show some issues of apathy towards music at
GCSE, it is not the whole picture. The music department also suffers from the way in
which the GCSE options pool is organised. Historically my colleagues tell me that
this problem was not always so acute. We lose students to other subjects because the
combination of choices does not allow for the inclusion of music. Last year we also
lost several really good pupils because they had been fast tracked in History and they
discovered later to their dismay that they were unable to choose music because of
timetable restraints. There were letters from several angry parents at the time who
felt that they would have been happier to have known of this at the time the earlier
choices weremade. They wrote in support of the music department, which was very
gratifying. I understand that the History fast track idea has since been shelved.
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Burnard (2004) used a video based research approach. She investigated what pupils thought
of their own learning. She says that consulting pupils views on their learning is an essential
element in the development and improvement of schools (ibid,2004:23). This consultation
of pupils thoughts and ideas is a popular idea at the moment and one which has been
encouraged by the government over the past few years. The teacher reflects on significant
moments by observing videoed interviews. She signalled when she felt the pupils were
learning and what they were learning. The pupils themselves were given an opportunity to
highlight significant moments when they felt that they are learning. They felt they were
learning most when they were having fun, were in control and not just sitting writing.
Again nothing surprising about these conclusions, but their comments gave me ideas for my
questionnaire. Burnard feels that year eight is notorious for problems of engagement and
achievement in learning. This is a very different view from my own experience. I find year
eight pupils are still open to ideas. However the challenge to motivate is the same regardless
of the year group.
An interesting article from Australia (Winter 2004) details a study that has trialled a scheme
of work using music composed by the artist Sting. The writer describes the integrated
approach to teaching music, listening, performance and composition. This was designed
specifically for pupils aged 16-18. These pupils are a little older than my target group. This
was quite a large quantitative study, involving six secondary music teachers and their senior
pupils. All used a teaching kit provided by the author and the results were evaluated by
means of aural and written tests. His conclusions showed that the students had significantly
higher test scores by becoming fully engrossed in this popular music based scheme of work.
He maintains that music educators must continue to examine new musical content and
develop suitable pedagogical approaches (ibid, 2004:235).
Winter has similar methods to the writings of Lucy Green. She is an eminent professor of
music who has written several books on the changing curriculum. Lucy Green is particularly
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known for her book How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education,
(2002). In the book she states that popular musicians acquire some or all of their skills and
knowledge informally. She asserts that they do this with little help from trained instrumental
teachers. Lucy Green interviews musicians from all age groups exploring what she describes
as informal music learning practices (ibid, 2002.5).
She maintains that young musicians largely teach themselves or
pick up skills or knowledge.by watching and imitating musicians
around them and by making references to recordings or performances
and other live events involving their chosen music. (ibid, 2002:5).
At this point Green (2002) had not had the opportunity to put her research findings into
action but merely offers her ideas as humble suggestions in the hope that some educators
may find them constructive points of departure or discussion ( ibid, 2002.186). I find the
ideas cited in the book very exciting. I learnt much of my music through the development of
a good ear (ibid, 2002:195). I am fortunate to have developed the ability to absorb music
which seems like a process of osmosis, as I can regurgitate music that I have heard. I also
use a great deal of on the spot demonstration in my classes showing pupils what something
should sound like. I feel that modelling what is required gives the pupils a good starting point
and gives the opportunity for pupils to develop their own good ears.
In 2006, Lucy Green along with Abigail Walmsley has been putting some of the ideas that
she had first written about in her book, into practice as part of a pilot study in three areas of
the country. This is a three year action research project that explores innovative ways of
engaging young people aged 11-19 in music making. The most exciting concept for me is the
way that the study has allowed for a completely different way of teaching. The ideas come
from the students themselves and the teachers act as advisors and facilitators only. This
article appeared in a publication that my department subscribes to (Classroom Music, 2006)
and was brought to my attention by my head of department. My colleagues in the department
both feel that there may be something to be gained by this approach and I am looking to use
some of the ideas myself. Usefully there is a scheme of work published, along with
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comments from the schools in the pilot study about each stage. It would be a difficult scheme
of work to manage both from resource and people managing aspects. But descriptions of
resources and space from other school music departments, point to the fact that my school
should be in a good position to try. The results of the pilot scheme will be published later this
year and a resource pack is going to be made available in February. I have requested that one
be sent to me.
All these studies offer ideas and thoughts on how to improve the situation for music in
school. However teachers are always governed by outside influences. As I write this, the talk
in our department is about the Key Stage 3 (KS3) Music Pilot, this is part of the Secondary
Strategy for School Improvement. (DfES 2005) My Head of Department (HOD) (A)
attended a course about this only last week. She returned saying;
We are doing it all wrong! We should not be contextualising the topics for
the pupils, but concentrating on the skills which we want them to acquire.
(A) cited teaching pupils about the Blues and how we would normally begin the topic with a
brief discussion about the slave trade and the history of black African culture in the United
States of America. Apparently this is not what we should be doing, but rather we should get
straight on and teach the chords required for the 12 bar blues. This was received in the office
by both me and my other colleague (B) with some disbelief. (B) said here we go again
another new way of doing something (A) has also said that so far she is not entirely clear
about what the complete message from the course is, so has not passed on too much
information as yet. My initial reaction is that I do not understand how the pupils can
understand what they are listening to and trying to emulate, if it is not put into some kind of
context. Detailed learning of dates and history is not what I am advocating, but a general
background should be presented and discussed with the class.
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I have only been a teacher for a relatively short time, but I am acutely aware that in many
ways our working lives are determined by influences beyond our control. The following
chapter discusses some of the influences that direct the lives of teachers.
Chapter Four -Influences
It is clear that teachers are not really free to choose what they teach; there are forces that direct
what we deliver. At the macro level the government ministers with advisory help, design the
National Curriculum (NC) to which we have to adhere. The school, at the mezzo level
determines class sizes, length of lessons and whether our classes should be streamed or not. At
my school pupils are not streamed in music. At the micro level, the schemes of work that are
in place historically in the department may have to be adhered to. All of these impact on our
planning.
One great issue with music teachers is the use of target setting. Pupils arrive from Primary
School with a set of numbers gained for their SATs tests. These tests only judge maths,
science and english, hugely important subjects and the core subjects at Secondary level.
However, they arrive in the classrooms of other subjects with the expectation to be judged at
the same level they gained for their SATs. Sometimes they and their parents do not understand
why Ahmed might be a level 6B for maths but only 4C for music. Probably Ahmed does not
play a musical instrument or does not have much understanding of musical concepts. I know
the teachers of Art and Drama have the same problem. This misconception by pupils and their
parents is something I have started to address within the department by introducing a series of
self-assessment booklets. Each musical topic studied, has a page to write marks gained and a
series of questions that encourage the pupils to reflect on their performance. The pupils are
then encouraged to judge their performance against the target levels that are written in easy
language on posters on the wall. The department has started to use these booklets for year
seven classes and they will be introduced from September 2006 for all year groups. An
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improvement to these booklets will be to include a copy of the music level posters within the
booklet itself. These booklets are intended to show a whole years work and eventually the
whole of the pupils performance during Key stage three.
I have been made aware very recently about the Pupil Achievement Tracker (PAT) (DfES
2004).As a faculty representative on the Assessment for Learning Committee at my school, I
attended a training session in school to discover the uses that this piece of computer
programming has for teachers. Startlingly, PAT generates the figures for pupils at Key Stage
Two and schools are supposed to be able to predict their GCSE grades at the end of Key Stage
4 from this data. Even prior to PAT, I have had year 10 GSCE music students who do not
play an instrument or sing confidently, predicted with an A* because they are very bright and
have high SATs scores in maths, english and science. Sadly this does always equate to talents
in the arts, music, art and drama all have discrete skills. Also, just where and how is the
creativity of a pupil measured? I will discuss creativity at more length in chapter six.
I am in favour of the NC generally, as it has changed radically how music is taught. The NC
has been in force since 1988 and personally I think that the initial shake up that it caused,
changed the way music was delivered in school for the better. Prior to 1988 teachers were
allowed to set their own curriculum and therefore the content delivered differed from school to
school. Possibly the quality differed from school to school also. I attended high school myself
between 1966 and 1973, which was some years prior to the implementation of the NC. Even
though I was a fairly accomplished and keen musician, I can remember some very boring
music lessons where we had to listen to a teacher drone on and then do a lot of writing. The
only practical music making was class singing. The only world music we might have come
across was possibly a Scottish folk song. I realise that I am only able to speak from my own
individual experience. In other schools music lessons may have been interesting and exciting.
I feel that there is a better chance today for this to be possible across the board, as todays
music lessons are very practical.
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The basic NC instructions are that students listen, appraise, compose and perform music. All
schemes of work in our department are designed to encompass these four elements. Students
are introduced to topics, listen to musical examples and then work mostly in groups to either
arrange or compose music using the concepts they have learnt about. Writing about music is
deliberately limited. This is vastly different than my own experiences as a pupil. I feel that
music lessons now give pupils the opportunity to be creative and not just passive learners. I
wrote earlier about the difficulty there is in measuring creativity, the following chapter tries to
identify what creativity is and how it may be measured.
Chapter Five- What is Creativity?
So, what is creativity? I thought I knew. My own definition of creativity has been based on
something akin to the standard version of Create (verb) To bring into being, cause to
exist; the Oxford English Dictionary definition goes on further to say esp. to produce
where nothing was before, to form out of nothing "
However, on consideration, I do not feel that this definition is totally apt for the process that
happens within music classrooms. The pupils do not bring into being something where there
was nothing before; rather they use the ideas and techniques that they have been taught, which
they then employ to produce something that is new to them. In some ways they are given
ingredients for a musical recipe and the menu they produce is a performance or composition.
The following definition I feel something a little nearer to what actually takes place.
The dictionary definition of creativity usually refers to producing something
new, producing something from nothing. In fact creativity usually involves
recombining and modifying ideas and objects that already exist. Something
new is created, but not from nothing.
http://www.wyrdology.com/mind/creativity/faq.html accessed June 2006
There seems to be quite a few confusing definitions about creativity and being creative.
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Odena, 2001, created a piece of research trying to identify how secondary school music
teachers view creativity. Odena considered the aspects of pupil characteristics the
environment in which the process takes place and the product, the final composition or
performance. For me, particularly for students at key stage three, the process that is taken to
reach a final composition or performance can be almost more important than the performance
or composition itself. Sometimes the final composition or performance a pupil offers is not
very polished, but they have understood the task and have been imaginative in the creation of
the product.
I will explore some other definitions to see how I can further clarify the meaning for myself.
The 1999 National Advisory Committee for Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE)
report All Our Futures define creativity as: imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce
outcomes that are both original and of value (page 30) I am a little suspect nevertheless
about their glossy brochures asserting what creativity is. Even the NACCCE report asserts
that creativity has an elusive definition (page 29), this difficulty in the definition of
creativity could make the job delivering a creative subject difficult. The phrase democratic
(page 30) creativity is used in the NACCCE report, the authors of the report state that this is
the creativity of the ordinary person, recognising that all pupils can be creative. This
separates the creativity that pupils can show from the creativity of genius which the NACCE
calls elite creativity (page 28). The NACCE report breaks the definition of creativity down
into four characteristics. (Page 29) They maintain that to be creative always involves
thinking or behaving imaginatively. The imaginative activity is purposeful. It must be
original and the outcome must be of value
How to measure and assess these creative acts? How do I assess creativity in my classroom?
Certainly it is not about setting students tests. My own feeling is that there are no right or
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wrong answers in a creative process. Providing pupils produce a composition or performance
that is of value. Obviously there are difficulties in judging what is valuable. My own ideas
about what is value is that that is the pupils have taken the concepts and ideas and produced
a piece of work new to them that relates to the concepts taught. Pupils sometimes surprise me
and use the concepts to produce some exciting products. I remember a group of year eight
pupils who were not particularly musically talented working on a Ternary Form piece (a
construct of music in three parts, ABA with B forming a contrast) using only their voices and
a selection of words which they broke up into individual syllables. The result was very
rhythmic and effective, and entirely unexpected. I have to judge moments like these as
creative. I might teach year seven pupils short rhythmic phrases in order to practice reading
note values, if they then select several of these phrases and create a piece of music and
perform it to the class. Surely again this is a creative act?
I realise that I have only scratched the surface of how to understand creativity and like some
other issues that writing this dissertation has highlighted, they have stimulated my thought
processes and I will need to do more research to come to any conclusion.
However having considered what creativity is and some of the ways it might be measured, I
would now feel more equipped to defend my subject and its inclusion in the school curriculum
in an open debate should the occasion arise. The following chapter outlines some of the
benefits that I feel that the study of music can give to pupils.
Chapter Five- Music as a subject in school
I need therefore to be able to sell my subject. It would be fantastic to teach pupils who are all
potential musicians or are at least fascinated by music as a subject. Clearly the reality is a long
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way from this situation and I am not so naive to think I can always please everybody in the
class. Nevertheless there can be enormous benefits to pupils in the way music is taught today,
regardless of the musical skills that they acquire.
In July 2004 the government launched the Music Manifesto. The Department for Education
and Science (DfES) and the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) are actively
promoting music for young people. They say they want to encourage good curriculum in
schools and opportunities for all pupils to have instrumental lessons in school regardless of
their financial background. The Music Manifesto has been talked about in many
publications. The website politics.co.uk said;
Music teaching in schools is the focus of a new manifesto launched today.
Government departments, voluntary groups and the music industry have come
together to promote the importance of music and the 'unique contribution' it
can make to education. Through the manifesto the signatories aim to provide
children with access to a range of music experiences and give them more
opportunities to develop their music skills. They also pledge to identify and
nurture the most talented musicians, to develop a world class workforce in
music education and to improve the support structures for young people's
music making. (politics.co.uk, July 2006)
David Miliband the school standards minister is quoted saying that;
. the music manifesto - backed by 180 million in the ring-fenced
Music Standards Fund - would ensure that music remained central to an
enriched and balanced curriculum.
He said: Standards and creativity go hand in hand. Music is central to our
drive to provide an enriched and balanced curriculum for all school children.
The manifesto is a route map for the future of music in school and by
schoolchildren. This is just the start - we expect new pledges and newsignatories to come on board this unique collaboration.(Milliband,2004)
I am yet to see any specific benefit within my school, but perhaps the effects will take time to
filter down. Here is the government rhetoric about standards and creativity. I wrote earlier
about PAT (pupil achievement tracker). Nowhere in any data gathering programmes or
exercises have I seen how creativity is tobe measured. The data always focuses on SATs
subjects. Yet the attainment in those subjects set the standard to which I am expected to
grade my pupils in music which is an entirely discrete subject. I understand that the data
produced by PAT and others gives an average result for other subjects but it is difficult to
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relate the target grades pupils arrive with against their innate musical ability. Parents can be
disappointed when their children receive lower grades in music than those they might
achieve in other subjects.
Boris Johnston, Shadow Minister for the Arts, hits back at the government with a scathing
reply that described the music manifesto:
as a "document of Wagnerian length with more hot air than the
wind section of the London Philharmonic." Teachers were already
deluged with bureaucracy and pupils so oppressed with tests that it was
very hard to see how schools could fit music in.
He said: "This music manifesto has all the hallmarks of a government
with a guilty conscience. They know they have crowded music out withtop-down diktat from Whitehall, and they think they can make things
better with a load of warm words." (Johnston, 2006)
This is an expected type of retort from someone in opposition. However, Boris Johnson has
also been quoted as saying that the Tories would bring back hymn singing into school
assemblies, which just goes to show how out of touch he is with our multicultural society!
Whilst I appreciate that much of the Music Manifesto may be even more government
rhetoric, the important feature is that music is being talked about and highlighted. I hope that
the importance of learning music for its own sake in school will be continued. I am positive
of the benefits music can give.
Studies have been made to try to prove the influence music can have. Susan Hallam has
compiled a comprehensive document, The Power of Music (2001) for the Performing Rights
Society (PRS). The PRS are the body that collects and distributes licence fees for the public
performance and broadcast of musical works.
The document by Hallam reviews research topics undertaken over the past 10 years or so.
These research topics look at the other values of music. It would not be possible within the
remit of my dissertation to detail all this research. Some examples of research that Hallam
includes in the Power of Music, have shown that music can affect us physically (Bartlett
1996), this research measured the effects of music on the heart, blood pressure, muscular
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tension and other bodily systems, concluding that music does indeed have the ability to affect
these. The adage that music can soothe the savage beast certainly seems to have some
credence. I know that music can have the ability to calm or excite. Hallam documents the
research by Robazza et al (1994), who pursued the idea that music affects us emotionally;
Robazza et al. played snippets of classical music to subjects across a wide age range and
asked them to link each piece to an emotion. Their analysis showed that there was very little
difference across gender or age with the exception of the children tested, who were between
the ages of nine and ten, perceived more happiness and less anger in the music. Research
within a maths classroom by Hallam & Price (1998) questioned whether music has an effect
on the behaviour of pupils. These pupils were children with emotional and behavioural
difficulties, not only was there a significant improvement in the behaviour of the pupils but
their maths performance was significantly improved. This links into the work by Savan
(1999) who played Mozart to a group of ten boys with special educational needs, the focus of
this research supposed that the music produced a chemical within the brain which improved
spatial awareness and co-ordination, thus improving behaviour by reducing frustration.
Indeed much has been written about the Mozart effect (Savan 1999) also (Hallam and
Godwin 2000). However as Hallam states research which claimed that listening to Mozart
could improve spatial reasoning has proved difficult to replicate.
There is such a wealth of research to demonstrate the power and importance of music to
humans. As a musician myself, it is not difficult to argue with these views and I want to
demonstrate why I feel music is an important part of the curriculum. This is the subject of the
chapter following.
Chapter Seven Advocating for music in school
I am not attempting to support the views I outline below with any specific evidence within this
dissertation. Nonetheless I feel it is important to outline some of the specific musical skills
learnt in school which include;
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The development of performance skills;
Pupils are given frequent opportunities to perform solo and in groups with other pupils.
Performing give pupils the opportunity to develop confidence in being able to stand in front
of others and present themselves and their work. This ultimately I feel can contribute to the
techniques required in other subjects such as drama and english when they are judged on
their ability to speak in front of others. Looking further than school, this confidence building
can impact on future job interviews where the pupils have to present themselves.
The opportunity to practise composition techniques;
Nearly all schemes of work include an element of composition, either by the pupil alone or
with others. This skill or accomplishment encourages creativity. Many compositions are
constructed as a result of problem solving. The pupils learn concepts about a particular style
or topic of music and either by copying ideas directly from an already composed piece, or
creating one from scratch, they can construct a piece of music which is all their own.
Students are encouraged to appraise each others performances and compositions: All
schemes of work finish with an assessment, which is a whole class activity. Each scheme of
work finishes with a performance, which is assessed by the class members and me.
Learning the value of making music with others;
This is a further opportunity to develop listening skills. They have to be aware of their own
part as a component of the whole sound, and judge the overall balance of the sound that they
make within the group. They have to play at the correct moments in the piece, whether they
are reading from a score, playing from memory or improvising on the spot.
The value of individual practice, working at own pace to improve technical skills;
The pupils mostly work in groups in practice rooms and spaces outside the classroom. They
work partly unattended and must develop good discipline, using guidelines set by the
teacher, in order to work whether there is a teacher present or not. Most of the groups in my
classroom evolve naturally from friendship groups. I have made some use ability groupings
and for some topics this is essential. However, I have found that the pupils seem to work best
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with their friends. Interestingly there develops a natural hierarchy and leaders soon present
themselves.
Being able to understand how music is used in everyday life;
It is important to be aware how music is to promote products and aid the memory. How it is
used in theme tunes both on television and in film, in advertisements which trigger product
memory and how music can be present almost without us noticing such as in supermarkets,
lifts etc.
Recognizing the variety of music in everyday life;
Pupils are taught many different styles and genres of music, including music from around the
world such as India, in Indian classical music and Indonesia through learning about gamelan
Orchestras. This encourages the understanding of other cultures. Pupils are exposed to styles
and genres of music that they would not normally encounter. This might appear tokenistic
and indeed it is not possible to become experts in the music of another culture easily.
However the broadening of the curriculum from just Western classical music to sounds from
other cultures opens up possibilities in both the appreciation through listening and the
opportunity to apply new compositional techniques.
The education of future audiences;
This may seem a minor consequence of music lessons, but it is my job to introduce my
pupils to musical experiences that they may not ever get otherwise. The knock on effect of
this would be for pupils to develop a liking for a particular genre or artist and make efforts to
go to concerts and buy their music. Years spent in the performing arts, has taught me the
value of bottoms on seats. Without the audience there would not be the performer.
Pupils who are going to study music further particularly need to develop all the skills I have
written about above.
Negotiation skills;
I wrote earlier how the opportunity to work in small groups away from the classroom
requires the pupils to take responsibility for their work. They have to work to a brief set by
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the teacher and need to discuss with each other how they are going to achieve the end
product. Very often in this situation leaders present themselves. Arguments may happen.
This in itself is not a problem but part of the learning curve of being able to work within a
group and put ones own ideas forward. To be able to discuss rationally how problems are
going to be solved is a useful skill to acquire.
A final thought.
Music can give some students success in a subject other than an academic one.
There is also the benefit of pure enjoyment, as the pupils may not be studying music after
year nine, the academic pressure is off, and music lessons could at this point be purely
recreational. It is up to me to make sure that my lessons can be.
The following chapter describes the process that I used to follow my research.
Chapter Eight The methodology
In this chapter I am going to describe how I set about my research and the reasons for
tackling it this way.
Bassey writes an adaptation from Perry (1978)
My most recent discovery is research. If I reflect on some of my
actions, analyse why I did what I did and what the consequenceswere for others, seek criticism from colleagues, read what others
have done in similar circumstances, and test out my ideas by
searching for evidence, I believe my judgement improves and so, in
the heat of the moment when there is little time to think, I make
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researchers in school tend to opt for questionnaires in preference to qualitative methods
such as naturalistic observations and interviews. They are of the opinion that questionnaires
allow for a distance from the disturbing effects of interviewing (Elliot et al in Elliot
1991:62). I felt that my use of the questionnaire had allowed the pupils to be very honest,
something they may not have felt able to do in a personal interview, however my analysis of
the data is mostly qualitative and not quantative.
I reflected on events and discourse with the students as I taught the scheme of work. Schn
(1983) popularised the term reflective practitioner to describe somebody who is awake to,
and aware of their practice, and not just immersed in it. Mason (2002:15). My reflection is
personal, being about how I responded in certain situations and contains mostly reflection-
on- action, the reflection that happens after the event which can be rational and considered,
rather than reflection- in- action, the reflection that occurs on the spot. Schn (1983) I have
included journal entries written after or during events and have analysed my writings at a
later date.
Limitations
Both Mason (2002) and Maclure (2003) identify the problem of being an observer in ones
own classroom. Both authors feel that observing ones own classroom could make any data
gathered less valid. Given any situation the description would differ from viewer to viewer.
Mason (2002:227) asserts that All research is problematic precisely because there is no
guarantee of truth. Maclure (2003:87) writes that there are no pure qualitative research
texts. and that The contrary pull of subjective and objective authority influences the style
of ethnographic texts. Whilst Griffiths (1998) says that researchers have opinions about
their research precisely because they have chosen something of significance to themselves.
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I can only ever give my own personal view of events and whilst these views are not untruths,
if they were described by someone else they would I know the situations would be described
differently. My data has been scrutinised regularly by my critical friends,
in my case my tutor and other members of the MA group. They analysed what I had written
and highlighted areas that I had not considered. They assessed the Face validity
which Griffiths says is one way of assessing whether the findings are really about what
they appeared to be about,(1998:132). None of my group were music teachers and it was
therefore very necessary for me to ensure that what I wrote was easily understood.
Another limitation is that of time. The lead up to the scheme of work began in January and
the scheme of work which took six weeks was finished shortly after Easter. The second
questionnaire was completed at this time. I write later that other events in school got in the
way of the scheme of work. Pupils were absent during some practices and performance
recordings which affected the quality of the final product.
The pupils who took part
As part of my qualitative research; I canvassed opinions through two questionnaires and a
group discussion. I had planned originally to include all the year nine students in my study.
However I teach four classes which amounts to over 100 students which I soon realised was
too large a number. Therefore, after the initial questionnaire which I gave to all 100 of the
students, I then limited the study to just one class containing 24 students. I will refer to them
as class 9A. The mixed ability class contained 12 boys and 12girls. Only two members of
the class, both boys, have opted to study music at GCSE. They are both excellent musicians
and play several instruments each. One other member of the class plays the piano a little but
does not consider himself a musician. The rest of the pupils have only ever had class music
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lessons and only therefore only gained musical skills as a group within the school classroom.
One boy has severe concentration problems that can sometimes result in some low level
disruption. One girl is often absent due to poor behaviour around the school, her behaviour
however is generally reasonable in music lessons when she is present but her absence
hinders her continuity. This is a very typical make up of a class in my school.
The Data
The data analysis from questionnaire number one, in chapter ten, includes the answers I
received from all of my classes. Out of the answers I obtained from the students and their
choices about future topics to study, I then wrote a scheme of work about rap music. The
choice of rap came about because many of the pupils expressed a liking for rap music (see
chapter nine). I felt that all pupils would be able to take part in a rap performance as the
focus is on the use of the voice and not on instrumental ability.
The scheme of work began in February and I observed my chosen focus class, 9A, and
discussed ideas with them as the scheme of work on rap progressed, (see chapter 10.) A
discussion was organised to pursue the topic of identity that had been highlighted as the
scheme of work progressed. This discussion was opened to all my year nine students but in
fact only five participated. (Details of this discussion are given in chapter 13). The final data
collection was a questionnaire given only to 9A, asking how they had enjoyed the project
and what ideas they had for improvements.
The Ethics
All pupil names have been changed to preserve anonymity, However as I have a group
students from the Indian subcontinent, I have used a mixture of both Asian and Western
names. I consulted my line manager, a deputy head in the school, about whether I needed to
write to parents to ask permission to undertake my practitioner research. (See journal entry
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page 40). She advised me that this was not necessary as the pupils would not be identifiable
in the document.
I informed the pupils personally both verbally and with a short paragraph at the top of the
questionnaires that I was doing the research and would use the data they provided but not
their names. The questionnaire was done anonymously. Pupils were allowed to opt out of
any questionnaire, although none chose to.
Finally
Although I realise that there is not necessarily an answer to a specific question in my
research. I intend it more as a way to inform my practice by focusing on my pupils thoughts
about music lessons. I intended it also to be a vehicle for my learning about their kind of
music. As I have stated the outcome of my research will probably not be an answer to a
question. Rather I hoped it was an attempt to make my year nine students enjoy some of the
last lessons in music that they will have in Key Stage 3, and possibly the last music lessons
most of them will have forever. It undoubtedly became a learning curve for me, as I looked
to update my knowledge of some of the music my pupils enjoy.
The following chapter describes in detail how the study unfolded from the initial ideas
Chapter Nine Beginning the research
As I wrote this in February, I had been already trying to put some ideas into action. I had
signalled that I wished to consult the views of my pupils; this is something that seems to be
happening more and more both in my school and elsewhere. There is a movement in my
school at the moment to consult pupils and give them greater autonomy over what they study
and contribute to the general ethos and rules of the school. Pupils take part in school council
meetings and members of the school council send representatives to many of teaching and
learning forums, which happen monthly. There have been questionnaires sent out to all
pupils asking opinions on topics such as changes to the school day among others.
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In places other than my school, pupils have been asked by many researchers to give their
opinions on what constitutes a good teacher. A long term project was run (2001-2003) by the
Teaching and Learning Research Programme based at Cambridge University, which
supported over 30 research projects over this period. The researchers suggest many
outcomes, amongst which are that pupils develop a stronger sense of membership and of
being more included in the schools purposes the organisational dimension They suggest
that teachers develop the capacity to see the familiar from a different angle and a practical
agenda for improvement I take this to mean that teachers should not be set in their ways, but
always be willing to try new ideas. Seeking the viewpoint of my pupils directly is one of the
ways I wish to improve my practice. It is my wish to develop a practical method of
improving the learning of my year 9 students. Including their suggestions and seeing some
aspects of music lessons from their point of view may be the way to do this. Ruddick and
Flutter (2000) argue that firsthand accounts of classroom life should be gathered from those
who experience it on a daily basis. The researchers from the Teaching and Learning
Research Programme also reported that the pupils appreciated being taken seriously and they
felt that they were able to manage their own progress better. The process helped to build
more open relationships. Perhaps I can emulate them.
One of the first requests I have had from my pupils, is to do to do more class singing. The
request arose during casual conversations during my lessons. This is an activity I admit I
have neglected due to the topics studied from September to Christmas.
Journal Entry Proper Songs December 2005
In a year 9 class the other day we sang some carols as it was near to Christmas.
The class was mostly enthusiastic. This was actually the first time that I had sung
with them all term, as we had done projects in the keyboard room and computer
room up until now. I told them that after Christmas we would sing much more.
Hooray shouted S. But can we sing proper songs.
What do you mean by proper songs? I asked.
You know things that are in the charts, stuff like that
I do intend to sing some songs that are familiar to them but it is quite sad to think
that they think that current chart items are the only proper songs.
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With this in mind the first action I took was to ask them what songs they wanted to try. They
gave me a long list of mostly current or near current pop items. I obtained lyrics, sheet music
for some and backing track for a few others. At the start of the new term in January I was
very keen to get the classes singing and tried one or two of the numbers out. I played a
couple of songs by Coldplay on the piano, Clocks and The Scientist. They were very,
very reluctant to open their mouths and sing. The following week I played a backing track
for Michael Jacksons Billy Jean. Again, I got a really feeble response. Both these items
had been specifically requested, so I was surprised that they did not feel able to join in. I
realised after a discussion with a group of pupils at the end of the lesson that there was
something about peer group identity that each of these songs gave to the pupils. During the
lesson despite not singing themselves, a group of pupils who had not tried to sing themselves
were very disparaging when another group specifically asked for Coldplay. The Coldplay
group stayed behind after class to speak to me.
Journal Entry Singing January 2006
A group of year nine girls stayed behind after class today. They were fed up.
I have been trying to encourage my year nine classes to sing and have been
trying to update their repertoire by asking for requests. From the list they
produced I have sourced some lyrics sheet music and also some backing
tracks. We tried some Coldplay songs one week which I accompanied on the
piano. It was awful. Nobody sang except me and one other. I wondered if the
solo piano was not encouraging them. so the following week I introduced
them to a backing track of Michael Jacksons Billy Jean, also one of their
choices. This was met with no better response. What ever is the matter with
them!A group of pupils said lets sing some Coldplay Another table of pupils
said What do you want to sing Coldplay for? Theyre rubbish.
After the class the Coldplay group stayed behind and complained that the
other group had chosen Billy Jean but still wouldnt sing it. They then
rubbished their choice.
I have realised that this is a classic case of peer pressure and the fact that it may be music
almost more than anything else in their lives that determines who they are. This identity
has been written about extensively. For example Chris Richards has written a very
interesting book called Teen Spirits (1998)which discusses music and identity in media
education. In the book he traces his attempts to teach pop music within the context of media
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education. He discusses his own personal history and his present position, showing clearly
his own background and the way it has shaped his thinking. This is very much like I am
trying to do. Of particular interest are the interviews with his students that he writes about in
detail. I intend to pursue similar lines of enquiry with my own pupils. Later in this
dissertation I describe a discussion I held with some year nine pupils on the subject of
identity. (Chapter 13)
I realised that I needed to pursue the attitudes of my students towards music and so I wrote a
questionnaire which was given to the pupils in January.
The following chapter analyses some of the answers I received for my first questionnaire.
Chapter Ten The first questionnaire
I gave the questionnaire (appendix) to all four of the year nine classes that I teach. This
amounts to approximately 100 students, (a flu virus during the week I did the questionnaire
meant there were fewer pupils than this canvassed). I asked the students to be completely
honest and really write what they felt without fear of reprisal. I had put a short paragraph at
the top of the questionnaire explaining what it was for and how their honesty would be
respected.
Predictably, some of the answers for the question
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What are your opinions about music lessons in school?
Were; (sic) I think music lessons are boringand other answers of a verysimilar nature.
However, some answers that the students gave were very constructive, for example; (I quote
verbatim)
Music lessons in school is quite boring because we only do classical
music. It is fun when we listen to modern music or play the keyboard.
The music is sometimes weird and sometimes what you do is boring. I
like working on the keyboards
Calmer and easier and more enjoyable than other lessons
They can be good at getting people to try new things and instruments
they might not usually get to use. They are quite good and I cant really
think of any suggestions to make them betterI enjoy them however I feel the majority of people mess about too much
and it makes it more difficult to do quality work in groups. It is
frustrating
Music lesson are great if the class co-op but its a bit nervous racking
when you have to perform in front of the class
Conversely, I had some very negative answers to this question;
Pointless waste of my time, rather do 7hrs Spanish
I do not know whether this comment means that the only other thing that this pupil hates
more is Spanish? Even worse are the two comments that follow;
Theyre boring and we never learn anything or do much music-related
Never had one so dont know
Fortunately I am not so insecure to feel that I am a complete failure and perhaps should give
up teaching. What I must learn from this nevertheless, is that these are three pupils whom I
have not reached and motivated. I am hoping however that the last answer came from a pupil
who thought he or she was answering a question about instrumental lessons.
Another question I asked was;
What kind of music do you like to listen to?
The answers again held no real surprises. The vast majority of the students listen to a diet of
Hip Hop, Rap and R&B. B. There were many pupils who expressed a liking for rap music. I
am going to design a scheme of work on the theme of rap, because I can focus on the use of
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the voice which all the pupils have access to and not instrumental skills which most of them
do not have. Although personally I would not choose to listen to rap music for pleasure
myself, I feel that it is nevertheless very clever. Rap musicians need to have a very strong
sense of rhythm. Rap, is after all poetry, spoken in rhythm, or rhythmically accented poetry
as I have heard it defined.
I asked my year nine pupils as part of the first questionnaire in January; exactly what type of
music do they listen to at home? Who are they with when listening? Do they feel listening to
music in school is different than listening to music at home? The answers they gave about
their choices were not very surprising. The majority of my pupils enjoy a diet consisting
mostly of Rap and R&B. There were a few choices of rock and Indie music and some cited
particular artists such as Blink 182, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and Snow Patrol. There
was even a reference to the rock band Queen, which I was not expecting.
I asked the question;
Who are you normally with when you listen to music?
I was quite surprised that the majority of my pupils listen to music alone. (See table 1) I had
expected that most of their musical entertainment came whilst they were with their friends. I
wonder if this solitary listening to music is through their MP3 players. This could be
material for a further question perhaps?
TABLE 1 n.b. some students ticked more than one answer
9A 9B 9C 9D
Nobody**** ****
**** ***
**** ****
**** **
**** ****
****
**** ****
***
My Friends**** **** **** * **** ****
My family** **** *** *
Other** **** ****
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I was asking a member of the senior management team in school, about the ethics I needed
to consider whilst doing my study. She highlighted to me during this conversation, the fact
that music is very fashion oriented, something I had not properly considered as an important
facet of my lessons.
Journal Entry Chat with line manager December 2005
Spoke to my line manager, J, a deputy head, today about the ethics of my doing
research in school. She was very pleased that I was pursuing this line of enquiry,
as it fitted in with the school improvement scheme that is very current. ..
I also asked J, whether I needed to send letters home to the pupils parents
informing them of my study but she said it was not necessary.A further facet to this story was that J, a Maths teacher, had not appreciated that
music is constantly developing She said that unlike some subjects whose basic
content remained the same, music could be fashionable or out of date very
quickly.
It was an interesting view from another subject.
In many subjects, whilst teachers may be constantly updating the way they present
information, the basic content remains the same. In music this is not so, as tastes and
fashions evolve very quickly. It is therefore quite difficult to constantly try and find up
to date examples by which to demonstrate a concept. It is very easy to appear to
students as out of date, not up with current chart sounds.
There is also the issue of identity. Music has always played a major part of being a
teenager. This goes right back to the beginnings of Rock and Roll in the fifties with the
emergence of the Teddy Boys, identified by their uniform of winkle picker shoes,
drainpipe trousers and hair swept up into quiffs. In the sixties you were either a Mod or
a Rocker and it was obvious from your style of dress which one you were. Today it is
still the same, adolescents choose which gang they belong to.
The idea of music forming the identity of an adolescent is not a new one. I have
already cited Richards book (1998) also the studies done by Szubertowska (2000) the
influence that the family has on pupils attitude to music. One of the conclusions that
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Szubertowska unsurprisingly drew wasAdolescents glean their music from family
environment and their peer group (page 318)
This reluctance of my pupils to sing songs that they feel are not representative of their peer
group, posed a bit of a problem for me. It made the whole class singing activity difficult. I
could have made the small groups sing their songs but they might have felt too exposed to
try that. I decided to change tack and introduced them to some songs I have put together for
year seven pupils. I compiled them into a booklet that I have called silly songs. The
booklets contain songs such as The Old Bazaar in Cairo, Camp Granada and
Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious to name just three. The pupils in year seven love them. I
am hoping that the easygoing nature of these songs may encourage the year nine pupils to be
brave and use their voices and we can return to the pop songs at a