Music in the Primary National Curriculum by Dr Mark Betteney

Music in the Primary National Curriculum

by Dr Mark Betteney

The national curriculum was heralded as a knowledge-based document, but how much knowledge is contained in the primary national curriculum for music?

Amongst many primary and Early Years teachers lurk insecurities regarding the teaching of music. Unless they are confident in their music subject knowledge, for many primary school teachers and Early Years practitioners the first question is not so much ‘how’ to teach music, but ‘whether’ to teach music. This binary choice is a possibility because it is common practice for specialist music teachers to deliver the music curriculum while teachers undertake their planning and preparation time, and although for perhaps fifteen years this has been a successful way of organising release time for teachers, the process has had two damaging consequences regarding the teaching and learning of music. The first is that it reinforces widely held beliefs that to teach music one must be a specialist, and to learn it one must be gifted. The second consequence is that it separates music from the rest of the curriculum, both in the eyes of teachers, and of the children. One of the problems for non-specialist teachers of music is the nebulous nature of music in the National Curriculum (DfE 2013). In that document, only two pages are dedicated to the subject, and the targets for KS1 and KS2, both contained within a single side of A4, include direction such as ‘Children should be taught to play tuned and untuned instruments musically’ (DfE, 2013:258, KS1) and to ‘improvise and compose music for a range of purposes’ (DfE, 2013:258, KS2). How these things might be taught, or what specifically needs to be learnt is not disclosed. There is none of the prescription inherent in the guidance surrounding the teaching of mathematics or phonics. This is a blessing for the music specialist, but not for the teacher who would welcome help and direction. The national curriculum (2013) was published with a fanfare of commitment to subject knowledge. Across the board it was to be a transformative knowledgebased curriculum. Consider these excerpts from speeches by prominent drivers of education policy around that time. “What is to be criticised [in the previous curriculum] is an education system which has relegated the importance of knowledge in favour of ill-defined learning skills”. (Hon. Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, 1st July 2010) “Our new curriculum affirms - at every point - the critical importance of knowledge acquisition”. (Rt. Hon. Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, 5th February 2013) “At the heart of our reforms has been a determination to place knowledge back at the core of what pupils learn in school. For too long our education system prized the development of skills above core knowledge” (Rt. Hon. Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Education, 27th January 2015). It is perhaps this commitment to knowledge that is a stumbling block for non-specialist teachers. Atkinson (2018) is interesting in her response to this. Exploring non-specialist teachers’ first priorities to teaching music as she asks, “which parts of the curriculum treat ‘music’ more as a noun and which ones treat it as more of a verb?” (Atkinson, 2018:11). This is a question that could be transformative to how nervous but willing nonspecialist teachers see their role in embracing music. In Atkinson’s (2018) view, if a teacher tries to teach ‘music, the noun’, the emphasis is on a product, or an outcome. If a teacher tries to teach ‘music, the verb’, the emphasis is on an experience, or involvement in

an event. In ‘music, the verb’ it is the participation which is important, allowing children opportunities to experiment with music resources, to participate in music games, and to sings songs, not because these things sound good, or would warrant a performance, but because they are enjoyable and developmental. As an example of binary attitudes, compare the phrases ‘mark-making’ and ‘music-making’. Early Years practitioners celebrate mark making, not as a product, but as a process. This contrasts heavily with the phrase ‘music-making’, where performative connotations often rush in to strangle simplicity of thought and aspirations of engagement. Welch (2005), urged teachers not to let children’s musical experiences be confined to the confidence or limitations of the teacher. He asked teachers to be musical role models, to engage and learn with the children, in order to erode the myth that music is an exclusive pursuit, engaged with only by the especially talented. The statements about the supremacy of knowledge over skills which heralded and accompanied the publication of the national curriculum can serve to be unhelpful in the delivery of it. Both Welch (2005) and Atkinson (2018) recommend process over product, for the learning and teaching of music. The language in the national curriculum for music is predominantly skills- and activity-based. The aims require children ‘to perform, listen to, … review and evaluate, …to create, … to sing and use their voices, to appreciate, to improvise … (DfE, 2013:257). The word ‘know’ appears only once in the national curriculum for music (p258). This is not the vocabulary of knowledge acquisition. It is the language of participation. The much-heralded commitment to subject knowledge at the publication and implementation of the national curriculum is neither outworked, nor welcome in the identified subject content for music.

Reference Atkinson, R. (2018) Mastering Primary Music, Department for Education (2013) The national curriculum in England: Key Stages 1 and 2 framework document © Crown copyright 2013 Gibb, N. (2010) ‘The Academies Bill’ Speech to the Reform think tank conference, November 2010. Gove, M. (2013) ‘The progressive Betrayal’ Speech to the Social Market Foundation, 5th February 2013 Morgan, N. (2015) ‘Why knowledge matters’. Speech at the Carlton Club, January 2015 Welch, G. F. (2005). We Are Musical International Journal of Music Education 23(2), 117-120 Dr Mark Betteney is senior lecturer in primary education, specialising in music, at the University of Greenwich.