In November 2022 the music department at BCCS underwent a deep dive as part of a section 5 OFSTED inspection. Below is my reflection on the experience in my role as subject lead for music. Outside of lesson planning and annotating seating plans, my preparation included ensuring my A4 curriculum file was up to date. While I was not directed to have anything of the sort by the school, I felt happier having the core documents to hand as a visual aid during the expected conversations. It was also a way for me to quickly recall data if it were needed. For me this file included: our curriculum ..read more

I wrote the following post in September last year and wanted to pop the post here too. I plan to go deeper on some of the points covered over the next few months. What does rebuilding music at BCCS look like after the last 18 months?  @MrsGleedMusic @BCCSMusic Music during the pandemic The last 18 months have been the quietest period I have ever known at BCCS. The biggest loss of all has been the lack of communal music making. Our team of 28 peripatetic instrumental teachers have done a phenomenal job of keeping online lessons going and curriculum lessons have by and large adapted well to ..read more

In a recent curriculum conversation with a colleague I was asked about the role of our curriculum and our roles as music teachers in being the gatekeepers of the knowledge of music history. Principally two questions were asked of me: what music did I choose to introduce to our students to through our curriculum and secondly how did I ensure that our students were exposed to the best of what has been written in the course of music history.  As musicians we are all very opinionated about what we perceive to be the best or most important pieces of music. In addition judging the composers to ..read more

Curriculum design is something I have always thoroughly enjoyed and in twenty years of teaching in four different departments I have never tired of re-writing and tinkering with the department curriculum. In my mind it is the core of a successful department too. Get this right and the rest follows in terms of co-curricular engagement.  Recently at BCCS we have re-centred our schemes around new concepts. Several years ago our schemes were quite traditional: Blues, EDM, song writing, Minimalism and the like. Three longer topics a year has always been my personal preference as it allows for ..read more

Curriculum design is something I have always thoroughly enjoyed and in twenty years of teaching in four different departments I have never tired of re-writing and tinkering with the department curriculum. In my mind it is the core of a successful department too. Get this right and the rest follows in terms of co-curricular engagement.  Recently at BCCS we have re-centred our schemes around new concepts. Several years ago our schemes were quite traditional: Blues, EDM, song writing, Minimalism and the like. Three longer topics a year has always been my personal preference as it allows for ..read more

This year since returning to a classroom of live music making post-covid, one thing that has struck me is how many key stage 3 students have become very nervous about performing in front of their peers. Like many in my role I have always have my fair share of students refusing to perform to the class or asking to show ‘just me’ at break. My common practice is to stick to my guns, kindly acknowledging students anxieties but giving an appropriate insistence towards performance. Body language, placement of the performer in the room and firm but kind expectations from the teacher can help to encou ..read more

This is a post I submitted as part of #ReLearnMusicTeaching on Twitter. This has been a super collaborative blogging effort I have occasionally contributed to during lockdown. It is a sequence of posts that discuss and unpack each of the tasks in ‘Learning To Teach in the Secondary School’. I have enjoyed reading the posts hugely. The post on the 5th June asked ‘what piece of advice have you been given that has made you the music teacher you are today’. My response is below. The best piece of advice I ever received as a music teacher was given to me in my second job, three years into my c ..read more

In a recent curriculum conversation with a colleague I was asked about the role of our curriculum and our roles as music teachers in being the gatekeepers of the knowledge of music history. Principally two questions were asked of me: what music did I choose to introduce to our students to through our curriculum and secondly how did I ensure that our students were exposed to the best of what has been written in the course of music history.  As musicians we are all very opinionated about what we perceive to be the best or most important pieces of music. In addition judging the composers to ..read more

I wrote the following post in September last year and wanted to pop the post here too. I plan to go deeper on some of the points covered over the next few months. What does rebuilding music at BCCS look like after the last 18 months?  @MrsGleedMusic @BCCSMusic Music during the pandemic The last 18 months have been the quietest period I have ever known at BCCS. The biggest loss of all has been the lack of communal music making. Our team of 28 peripatetic instrumental teachers have done a phenomenal job of keeping online lessons going and curriculum lessons have by and large adapted well to ..read more

I write this fully aware that there is probably enough noise already around the new Model Music Curriculum. In addition I have already seen a number of very well written and insightful blog posts from a range of phases and contexts. I wanted to make a small contribution beyond my Twitter replies and retweets. The emergence of this document has brought a huge amount of dialogue in the music education community. It would be foolish to not celebrate the spotlight that has been put on the subject and I feel this has been a real bonus. There have been many conversation ..read more