A brand new magazine to support and inspire primary music teachers!
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Issue 1.0
Spring Term 2018
Inside Top Ten Tips for Primary Music From planning & assessment to resourcing & CPD, we’ve got you covered
2 Our changing world… The challenges and benefits of adopting a World Music approach to the primary curriculum
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Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
Top 10 Tips for Primary Music Teachers by Dr Elizabeth Stafford @DrLizStafford
So they’ve made you music coordinator even though you know ‘nothing’ about music? We’ve got you covered…. 1. Don’t panic! So you’re the only musician in your school? Or maybe there are no musicians in your school at all? Don’t tell anyone we told you, but you don’t have to be ‘a musician’ to teach primary music, in the same way that you don’t need to be J.K Rowling to teach writing! However ‘unmusical’ you feel, you WILL be able to teach primary music because it’s at a level designed for 5-‐11 year olds, and you are much older and wiser than that.
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2. Invest in quality teaching resources. Make things easy for yourself and invest in an up-‐to-‐date curriculum scheme and modern resources. You don’t need to create everything from scratch yourself, particularly if you’re not confident about music. Let the experts do the
legwork for you and use commercially available resources that you can adapt to suit your class. Adaptation is easier than invention – shout-‐out to Disney and their live-‐action-‐remakes!
3. Clear out that music trolley. If it’s broken – chuck it. If you don’t know what it’s called – find out. If you don’t know how it works – find out. If you haven’t got a full class set of instruments, or at least one between two – time for a fundraiser. You can’t teach music effectively without providing functioning instruments for your pupils to play – it’s in the national curriculum and everything! 4. Talk to your local music education hub or service. In England your music education hub is specifically charged with helping YOU teach music better, so don’t be afraid to
Primary Music Magazine
knock on their door for some advice. Although this is not a statutory role in other parts of the UK, music services love to develop their relationships with schools, so get in touch and find out what they can do for you – musicians love to chat about music! 5. Get some CPD. Music is one of those subjects where it’s quite hard to learn what to do from a book. Attending a practical CPD course, or even an online course with video and audio exemplars, can be a great way to raise your confidence and give you some new ideas to try out. Even meeting up informally with colleagues in your school cluster or consortium can be enough to spark off some new ideas. Whatever CPD you undertake just make sure there is a good ratio of information to cake – it is scientifically proven* that you can’t take in information without simultaneously taking in sugar. *Exhaustive research by the author 6. Read the National Plan for Music Education. This plan is due to finish in 2020, so now would be a great time to check whether your pupils are getting their entitlement under this plan. Grab those opportunities before they go, as who knows what will happen post-‐2020? (Fingers crossed it’s not nuclear holocaust, eh? Although I bet your ancient music trolley will survive that intact…)
7. Involve your pupils. Don’t be worried if your pupils are ‘more expert’ at music than you – celebrate
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
it! Ask them to be a group leader for less confident pupils, ask them to start off the singing or playing in a performance, have them bring their instrument in and use it to contribue to class compositions and improvisations. We all know that kids love being given a job to do, and playing the violin is much more educationally valuable than sharpening pencils! Although it can make a very similar sound…. 8.
Film everything! Ok well not EVERYTHING, but as many activities as you can. It’s much easier to show progress through audio and video examples than through numbers on a spreadsheet. Ofsted have said that they expect to see audio and video assessment evidence for music, so make sure you have some videos and audio tracks ready for your inspection. Just think, if you create enough examples for them to look at, maybe they won’t have time to leave the room to do the rest of the inspection…
9. Drink water. Yes, I know, patronising much? But seriously, practical music lessons, particularly involving singing, dry you out much more than ordinary teaching. If you don’t want to lose your voice, keep sipping – and remember that clear spirits* look just like water when decanted. *Definitely do not do this. 10. Enjoy it! Music is meant to be fun! So even if it’s not your thing, try to make the experience enjoyable for yourself as well as your pupils. 3
Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
Our Changing
World…
Mike Simpson, Musical Director & co-‐founder of Inspire-‐works discusses how whole-‐class music making in primary schools has changed over the past 15 years, and explores whether world-‐ music should remain a part of it. @inspireworksuk
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“Let’s give up our jobs! Let’s travel to somewhere in the world where music, dance and drama are closely linked. Let’s stay as long as we can afford, learn as much as we can, buy as many authentic resources as we can and then teach everything we’ve learnt in workshops in the UK.” That is what my wife, Jacqui, said when she came home from work one day in the summer of 2002. Jacqui was then the Head of Drama in a school in Surrey and I was mainly forging an income from peripatetic drum kit/percussion teaching and leading a few African drumming workshops. We settled on travelling to Bali in Indonesia and were able to stay there for a year, living with a local family. We fell on our feet with my gamelan teacher being a prince in the royal family, Jacqui’s dance teacher being one of the most respected on the island and having shadow puppetry lessons with a leading shadow puppeteer. We commissioned our own 30-‐player set of gamelan instruments to be built and ended up needing to book a 40ft shipping container to bring everything back to the UK! It was all such a great idea, but would it work? Would schools book us to do workshops? Thankfully, our Indonesian arts workshops were an instant hit and we were very fortunate that whole-‐class instrumental learning was very much in its infancy so what we were doing was very new and suited the educational landscape at the time. We quickly expanded into other world-‐music genres, and in 2014 we partnered with the charity Street Child United to deliver two projects that led to us achieving the Guinness World Records for the largest samba band and the largest drumming lesson! These two projects remain the only world-‐music projects nominated as finalists in the history of the Music Teacher Awards.
Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
We could sit back and reminisce in our achievements. We are very proud and very grateful for what we have been able to achieve over the past 15-‐years. However, there are a couple of questions we’ve been asking ourselves a lot in recent years.
‘Is what we’re doing still relevant, needed and appropriate for music education today? How has the educational landscape changed since we started in 2002 and how would schools most benefit from our world-‐music expertise?’ When we started, Wider Opportunities didn’t exist – the concept of teaching practical curriculum music lessons with every pupil having an instrument to play was alien to most primary schools. As a result, most primary school music coordinators we encountered at the time felt inexperienced at leading a whole-‐class percussion project. Over the past 15 years we’ve seen primary school class teachers gradually gaining confidence in leading whole-‐class percussion lessons. We particularly noticed this during our 2016 Bang the Drum project which involved a hybrid workshop & video tuition scheme of work and required the class teacher to lead some whole-‐class drumming in the lessons. During observations in several different schools participating in this project, we were impressed that, using the teaching resources and drums we had provided, the class teachers, most of whom were not music specialists, felt confident to lead such a lesson from a drum -‐ and were doing it very well! Alongside our workshops with children have always been our CPD programmes. In recent years we’ve found the numbers of primary school class teachers attending our CPD programmes has increased greatly. The feedback we frequently hear is that class teachers and primary music coordinators are generally now comfortable with leading whole-‐class music activities themselves but the issue is that they are often lacking good teaching resources and schemes of work. Another issue we have always had is that being based in the south-‐east of England, apart from our CPD programmes, we have worked almost exclusively in schools in the south-‐east. Our school visits workshop model doesn’t work to extend to other parts of the UK and beyond due to increased travel costs. Recently, we were fortunate to gain Action Research funding from A New Direction (the Arts Council England Bridge organisation for London) to pilot some new ways of working which has resulting in us recently launching our online workshops and online 1-‐term courses. These are video based and can be accessed wherever you are, whenever you want. The Arts Award can be included in the 1-‐term courses and class assessments are easily carried out by the class teachers whilst the pupils are playing along to the videos and answering the online quizzes. Our experienced world-‐music facilitators are expert mentors for each school, providing support where needed.
As we continue to be very reflective and adaptive in our work, we are hoping that our 15-‐years experience of leading whole-‐class world-‐music projects will continue to support the teaching and learning within the classroom for many years to come.
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Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
Creating a Buzz…. Music Education Solutions® and Warwick Music Group have been working together on a new resource designed to help non-‐ specialist primary teachers deliver music with confidence.
The pBuzz KS1 Music Curriculum Package is a complete resource for teaching the national curriculum for music at KS1. Combining the expertise of plastic-‐instrument designing gurus Warwick Music Group with the primary curriculum experience of the team at Music Education Solutions, the resource looks set to be one of the most exciting new products on the market in 2018. The scheme comprises of 12 topic-‐based units of work covering the entire music national curriculum for KS1, each based around a brand new piece of music, and supported with a video explaining how to teach the lessons. Each unit has full lesson plans and assessment trackers, providing a complete resource for the teaching and reporting of music. There are also 12 cross-‐curricular lesson plans that provide creative approaches to the teaching of maths and science. A full suite of teacher development & support materials is available, breaking the national curriculum down into easy-‐to-‐ understand concepts. There is even the option to have a live training session at your school! The resource is available to schools from March 2018.
The Findings What did teachers say about the pBuzz package? “The children were really engaged during the lessons and they loved having the opportunity to play an instrument.” “It’s a great introduction to an instrument that non specialists can teach.”
1 84% of teachers said the pupils enjoyed the pBuzz lessons ‘very much.’
2 92% of teachers said the content of the scheme was ‘just right.’
3 100% of teachers found the teacher support materials valuable.
@pBuzzMusic
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Primary Music Magazine
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Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
Songs For Children Everywhere New music from the Friday Afternoons project
In April, UK-‐wide and international singing initiative Friday Afternoons will launch 12 new songs for young people around the world to sing. Written by Errollyn Wallen, an experienced singer-‐songwriter and composer of music for young voices, the new songs take inspiration from the composer’s travels over the past year. Every song in MAP: Songs for Children Everywhere includes a note about where it was written, from exotic places such as Belize, Crete, Israel and Palestine, to the more familiar Scotland and Suffolk. Speaking about the compositions, Errollyn said: “The collection reflects the experiences that I had when I was travelling around the world last year, but I also imagined children from different cultures and how the songs would appeal to them. I especially asked to record my own piano parts. I think its maybe because I write a lot of songs for myself to sing and play and I wanted to keep that connection – I felt it was really important for these songs.” The works will be premiered at the Albermarle Centre, Hull in May by a massed choir of young people from The City of Hull Junior Choir, Hull Choral Union Junior Chorus and students from Hull Primary and Secondary Schools in partnership with Hull Music Hub. The songs will be available to download for free from the Friday Afternoons Song Bank from April with additional resources becoming available throughout the year.
Since its launch in 2013, the Friday Afternoons project has encouraged more than 80,000 young people to sing contemporary classical repertoire. Led by Snape Maltings, the project was originally conceived as the culmination of the worldwide 2013 Britten centenary celebrations, taking its name from the set of songs the composer wrote for his brother’s school to sing every Friday. Since then a new collection of songs and additional resources has been made available annually, with Friday Afternoons projects being run in schools all around the UK and across the world.
@FridayPMs
Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
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Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
What’s that App? With ever more primary schools utilising iPads in the classroom, music technology expert David Ashworth shares his insights into apps to try in your music lessons. Why use apps? Apps usually upload much more quickly on tablets compared with software on computers, they rarely crash, and are intuitive to use. Although Apps are becoming more expensive, they are still far cheaper than most music software computer programmes, and the added bonus of using iPad apps is that the built in microphones, speakers and camera ensure that you have everything that you need to create, record and play music! Getting the best and most from your apps. When considering apps for classroom use, try to look at them with more of an ‘agnostic’, open minded approach. The app designers will have produced their apps with certain uses in mind, but also consider how they might best work for you in supporting your curriculum work. How might the features they offer support your teaching and learning needs? The examples which follow provide some pointers to thinking and planning in this way Bloom is a generative music application for iOS created by Brain Eno and Peter Chilvers. The software plays a low drone and touching the screen produces different tones, which play in a loop. The fact that it provides an instant display on the screen makes it ideal for working with graphic notation. It can also be used for live improvised performance and its use of simple modal scales makes it a great app for aural work with older students. The fact that it is easy to play and produces beautiful sounding melodic lines makes it an ideal application for use with younger students and in some SEND contexts. SampleToy The first thing to note is that you can ignore the word ‘toy’ in this app’s name. What makes it so useful is the speed at which you can record and play back a sampled sound. A great way of bringing more interesting unusual sounds into the classroom which are often beyond the reach of students in terms of affordability and playability. iReal Pro is a real time-‐saver. Simply type in chord progression for any song to instantly create an accomplished sounding backing track comprising guitars, bass, keyboards, drums etc. The songs can be played back in any key and at any tempo. Great for rehearsal, improvising, composing and performance activities. The tracks can also be played back in different musical styles. So students can get a feel for stylistic conventions and also have a lot of fun devising interesting cover versions of well known tunes. I find Scarborough Fair as a reggae number particularly engaging!
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Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
MiniSynth 2 from Yonac is a simple virtual synthesiser. This app gives students the chance to build and use their own synthesiser sounds. This can be an excellent independent learning tool for those are keen to explore music technology at a fairly basic level. They can experiment with changing oscillator settings, filters and effects to design and save configurations for use in subsequent music making. Air Vox This app makes use of the iPad’s built in camera to detect hand motion gestures which can be translated into sounds. Moving the hand up and down vertically over the iPad changes the pitch of notes, played from a chosen scale. The other hand can optionally move horizontally to control the volume or tone of the sound output. This is a great app for use in live performance involving dance or movement. It is also particularly useful for SEND students with limited motor control. GarageBand is one of the all time best apps for music makers. The basic version is part of the standard iPad suite of apps. To name just two of the features, GarageBand’s ‘Smart’ instruments can be used for writing diatonic chord progressions in any key and the Smart Drums feature uses a unique matrix grid, allowing users to create convincing drum patterns where the degree of complexity and relative dynamic levels can be easily controlled. Thumbjam is one of many ‘virtual instrument’ apps available for the iPad. Where it scores significantly over many of its rivals is in the way it allows the user to manipulate the tablet interface to add elements of expressive control to the triggered sounds. Wobbling the finger on a note will add a degree of vibrato whilst tiling the tablet will control the volume and other settings. There are a range of articulation settings and a large choice of instruments and scales which enable the user to play musical melodies and harmonies with considerable subtlety and nuance. Although you and your students will find apps quite easy to use, it is often a good idea to enlist technical support from the experts in your school. Storage/retrieval of students work on iPads is not as straightforward as it is on computers, so find out what systems are in place to facilitate this in your school. Finally, don’t forget your students! Some of them will be way ahead of the game – and may be a useful further source of advice on getting the most from your apps….
@davidashworth16
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Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
Charanga Sing
A brand new teaching resource aimed at encouraging everyone to sing more! Extensive research has shown the undeniably positive impact singing has on emotional, physical and mental well-‐being. This is the reason why singing features so highly in music curricula and on educational agendas – as well as simply being a great thing to do! Forming part of Charanga’s award-‐winning suite of programmes, Charanga Sing contains a growing bank of over 500 songs presented in a way that is intuitive to use whether by vocal specialists, confident singers or those just keen to encourage more singing every day. There are songs for all occasions, songs for all ages and songs for all groupings from soloists to massed choirs. The repertoire covers a wide range of styles, cultures and purposes with each one carefully picked to be included in the song bank. Charanga Sing’s easy-‐to-‐use search and browse facility allows you to find appropriate songs quickly and simply. The teaching resources comprise video tutorials, an on-‐screen learn to sing the song app with a unique tempo-‐control feature enabling teachers to choose the perfect practice speed. There are also backing tracks with or without lead vocals, lyric sheets, performance ideas and additional detailed information. No limit applies to the number of times a song can be used on or offline or to the amount of printed copies. The Vocal Coach video tutorial section provides a fascinating insight into the importance of vocal health. Using the expertise of Kim Chandler (internationally-‐acclaimed session singer and vocal coach), the first selection of videos ‘Exploring Vocal Health’ explain how to look after the voice, how the voice works and how to keep it safe. The next, ‘Vocal Warm-‐up Activities’, give a series of fun yet rigorous activities to warm up vocally together. These well-‐presented tutorials are ideal for both non-‐specialist and specialist teachers.
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Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
Each song within the song bank is presented with a wealth of useful information so it is easy to see at a glance where it has originated from and how suitable it would be for particular students. Clicking on ‘listen’ opens a mini playback channel to instantly hear the track, or ‘launch’ opens the multifaceted song app with the tempo control, performance options, visual cues and loop facility. Finding the right song for any occasion is made simple with the straightforward browse and search functions. Teachers can browse through the different collections to see what is available, perhaps for specific groups of singers, or well-‐known 2-‐part arrangements for school choirs. The search function allows for a more targeted approach; songs for a particular age range, style of music, certain season, place in the world or time in history. It’s easy to combine more than one search criteria, for example a song for ages 5-‐7 about minibeasts, or a 2-‐part song for ages 9-‐11. The star feature allows teachers to create a unique song collection which can be accessed from the top of the page with a single click on ‘My Starred Songs’. These starred songs, or any others, can be played anywhere such as the classroom, hall or at home. The ideas and suggestions for Charanga Sing have come from teachers so we are confident that this fantastic resource will be an invaluable asset for schools. Our ambition is that Charanga Sing will help everyone to enjoy singing more, with increased understanding and even greater confidence.
@charangamusic
Do you have an idea for an article for the next issue of Primary Music Magazine? Tweet us @primarymusicmag
• Music Improvement • INSET • Courses • Qualifications • CPD Programmes • Consultancy
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For a full list of our UK-wide music education consultancy services visit www.musiceducationsolutions.co.uk
Email: liz@musiceducationsolutions.co.uk Telephone: 07570455887 Twitter: @musicedsolution Facebook: MusicEducationSolutionsLtd
Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
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Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
Music vs Budget Brexit, The Credit Crunch, The Recession; our wallets have taken quite the financial hit in recent years and the money allocated to Education is no exception to this. Normans Musical Instruments ask: how can schools combat the knock-‐on effects on music of diminishing government funding?
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Some schools have taken to drastic measures. 20% of those surveyed in a recent investigation by the Guardian reported that music faced a vastly reduced timetable space. The BBC theorise that Music in schools could yet ‘face extinction.’ Schools are needing to save, or make, money fast or risk facing this very real extinction. Undoubtedly, this is one way for these establishments to save money, but at what social, developmental and cultural cost to our children? It has been proven time and time again, early musical exploration and education in children can have a direct impact on the speed of intellectual development as well as intellectual, social and emotional, motor, language, and overall literacy skills. With this in mind music remains firmly on the table for many establishments. As such, educators are having to be more creative than ever in ways to save – and make – money. A long-‐standing school staple
is the end of term concert. This is an easy way for Schools and Hubs to make a quick buck from parents in exchange for an hour of musical entertainment provided by their young ones and their classmates. Another method of emergency fundraising is to up – or introduce – joining fees for after-‐school music clubs. This can offer a quick financial fix yet ultimately -‐ while unavoidable in some cases – this can cause more problems than it solves. The most noticeable issue caused by this is the widening of social movement as only those whose family can afford to partake do. Actions like this force Music Education into the realms of luxury, rather than necessity. Perhaps the most damning measures forced upon school music departments can be seen when one looks at their supplies. Where once there were cupboards overflowing with vast rages of percussion, reams of music and a pile of recorders, there now lies a less pleasant reality. Many teachers count themselves lucky if they can get their hands on one or
two cheap, poor quality, instruments, not widely dissimilar to a Christmas cracker toy. Such ‘instruments’ offer no benefits, with often there not being enough pieces to go around a class. They are hardly up to basic usage and the sound produced can barely be called music. All these factors can create a frustrating and unenjoyable learning environment, meaning today’s children are truly missing out on a discipline that has benefits that reach all aspects of learning and development. Recent market research carried out by Normans Musical Instruments found that the two main concerns of music educators purchasing music resources are cost and quality. In that order. Responding to this we have spent the last few years working directly with designers and manufacturers to build ranges of instruments that are low in cost, without compromising on quality.
Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
One such percussion range that is proving itself to be a huge success is A-‐Star. Used by schools and Music Hubs up and down the country this range has allowed easy access to a variety of instruments that are both practical and affordable for the UK classroom. Recently we supplied the BBC with bespoke A-‐Star classroom packs for use in a new Music Pilot. All in all, it is clear music is not the thriving discipline it once was. However, with careful budgeting, continuous research into its cognitive benefits, and initiatives such as those that we have taken at Normans, it could just be that we help can save music from extinction in our Primary Schools.
@normansmusic
Children ‘Blast Off’ in concert
Children can learn the basics of a brass instrument in just one day – as shown at an event for schoolchildren in East Anglia.
Using pBuzz -‐ a new beginner plastic instrument -‐ the children learnt how to use a brass instrument mouthpiece, breathing techniques, rhythms and slide positions. pBuzz, created by Warwick Music Group – the team behind the world’s first plastic trombone, pBone -‐ has the same note-‐range as a recorder often used in early years music and can be played by children as young as three years old. The innovative pre-‐brass pBuzz provides children with the opportunity to start their musical journey. Teaching them the basics on pBuzz provides a solid foundation for musical learning, whether they go on to learn a brass instrument or not. Hosted by Royal Hospital School in Ipswich, children were given one day’s tuition on the instruments in a unique scheme called ‘Blast Off!’ The final performance included pieces by Quincy Jones and James Brown, accompanied by musicians from the Royal Marines School of Music. Richard Harvey, Bandmaster at the Royal Hospital School and event organiser said: "It was a brilliant day and we're really pleased that so many schools from across the region signed up. “The pupils involved have had the opportunity to try beginner brass and we've spotted some real potential for great musicians of the future. I hope that some of the children will be inspired to continue with brass. 17
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Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
Letter from the Editor Here at Music Education Solutions® we’re excited to bring you this brand new, free publication to support you in your primary music teaching! Whether you’re a music specialist or a complete novice, we have loads of fantastic advice, ideas and support to make your music lessons go with a bang! In future issues we’ll be turning to you to create and share content for other primary music teachers, so do get in touch with us if you have an idea to share. Until then, enjoy reading our inaugural issue!
Liz Stafford
PrimaryMusic Magazine
Issue 1.0: Spring 2018
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Primary Music Magazine
Issue 1.0 Spring 2018
