Tips for non-specialist Music Subject Leaders

Dr Liz Stafford shares her tips for non-specialist Music Subject Leaders

“We’ve decided to make you subject lead for Russian next year ”

“Um, but, I don’t speak Russian!”

“Oh don’t worry about that, there’s some wonderful resources in the cupboard”

“But I can’t read all these Cyrillic letters!”

“Don’t worry, we know you’ll rise to the challenge!”

This is the analogy I often cite when describing how it must feel to be given the job of music coordinator when you haven’t had any musical training. Music can feel like a completely different language, and your lack of experience – not able to play an instrument, not able to read music - like an insurmountable obstacle. However, the good news is anyone can lead and teach music, given the right support and guidance!

1. Find out if anyone else in your school is a confident musician, and seek their help (obvious, but effective!).

2. Create partnerships with the other music leaders in your cluster, consortium or trust, or if you're based in England, join the networks organised by your local music hub and find out how else they can support you

3. Read my Primary Music Leader's Handbook, which tells you everything you need to know about leading music in a primary school!

4. Investigate commercially available schemes of work that can support you until you feel confident to go it alone with your curriculum.

5. Investigate CPD course opportunities such as those offered by us at Music Education Solutions®. In particular the Primary Music Leadership Certificate is designed to support you with your subject leader role.

6. Check out free teaching resources for music such as BBC Ten Pieces, or any of the millions of YouTube playalong videos out there.

7. Have a look at resources and organisations that support singing in schools, which is going to be your easiest & quickest road in to music teaching if you haven’t had any musical training before.

8. Catch up on all the back issues of Primary Music Magazine, you're bound to find lots of ideas to inspire and support you!

9. Remember that your colleagues are probably even less enthusiastic about teaching music than you, otherwise they’d have volunteered for the subject leader job! Try to find non-threatening ways into music teaching that you can all try out together. For example try starting with listening, with each teacher sharing their favourite piece of music (in any style) with their class. If you think about the reasons that you enjoy a certain piece of music you’ll realise you already have a lot of appreciation & understanding skills to share.

10. Don’t panic! Do you have an A level or degree in every other subject that you teach? No of course you don’t, and you don’t need one! That old saying “ you only have to be one step ahead of the children” really applies here! And you know what? Once you settle into the role, you’ll find you ’ re 2, 3, 4 steps ahead, and before you know it, you’ll be an expert!