It all makes you wonder what Y10 and Y11 music students could do if quality music instruction were available to everyone from an early age and carried through KS1, 2, 3 and 4 with careful progression... (Not just music, actually, but all subjects!)

It just won't happen and even if there was a strong desire to improve school music from the government it would take years.

Sarah I totally agree with the idea that music education should be provided from the beginning of a childs school life. I know this would have benefitted both my children and some of their friends. I think we assume that children don't want to learn music but I don't think this is always the case sometimes it's just fear on their part or their parents.

I would like to see a huge improvement in educational generally but sadly this won't happen either. I'm afraid there just aren't the skills in schools to do this. I'm not suggesting there are no good school music teachers out there but it takes understanding of management to appoint the right person not to mention on going support.

To come back to my own experience, the girls school has someone teaching music who's specialist is Brass, they have reasonable but not excellent keyboard skills. This is a school where even when there was a music tradition it leant towards woodwind. I realise this is only a vague example but if schools view music like English or Maths Teaching and don't really consider or understand the pupils needs how will Music Teaching ever improve?

As it stands GCSE Music is a struggle for those without a grounding in various aspect of Music yet it's not working for those who have those skills either. Maybe the current GCSE needs tweeking (I'm not for dumbing down) and another or bridge qualification put in place. Perhaps the AB could devise something and run it in conjunction with outside organisations and those schools that are interested.

Something has to change and the current children learning music have to be given broarder skills in order for the situation to evolve into a better model. Perhaps everyone studying a Primary PGCE or BEd should be presuaded to have more music , art or drama training ,then things might start to change. We can't just leap from where we are to where we need to be.

I think I'd prefer that primary teachers had a decent grounding in maths, english and science than music and drama.

Lets be honest, there just isn't enough time in the school day to fit in everything that we'd like. And 1 hour of music a week, with 30 students having levels of interest, is not going to give anywhere near the coverage proposed. I'm cynical, because my own school music lessons were a complete waste of time, but that is my honest opinion. Even the best music teachers are not going to cover all this wonderful aural skills, analysis and note reading stuff, when its a struggle even to get a disinterested class to sit quietly.

I agree!! I was assuming they already get a decent grounding in core subjects and think they should do extras for other things to gain a basic understanding themselves. The more confident the Teacher feels the more inclined the class will be to behave. I suspect behaviour gets worse in fringe subjects.

Even one hour a week singing would be better than what existis todate providing it followed a structure and appropriate material was introduced (not singing 3 blind mice in year 6).

Please excuse the lengthy quotation from Charles Keil, but it is relevant:
http://borntogroove.org/mod/resource/view.php?id=193

It depresses me enormously to see children whose primary urges are to make noise, dance and generally move around being continually told to "sit still and shut up". It's bonkers - we end up with obese children who don't know how to make music or dance.

Reading through these posts has made me both angry and grateful I grew up when and where I did when notation was a regular part of the school music curriculum and free of charge group instrumental lessons (with free hire of school/county instruments) and access to the area youth music ensembles made music much more available to all irrespective of parental income. There was little emphasis on exams, but I was able to get to grade 4 standard* before my parents came under any pressure (from me!) to pay for more than clarinet reeds and music.

Sarah has already said so much of what I wanted to! I don't think that notation is the be-all and end-all of music, I wish my aural and improvisational skills were better. I do worry a lot about the dumbing down of the education system in this country.

I was in one of the earliest years to take GCSEs in the last year of O levels all the girls who achieved 7 or more A grades were congratulated at the start of the next academic year....my year that list would have lasted the entire assembly so they only listed those of us with 9 As. Were my year especially more brilliant and hard working- can't believe that, had the teaching improved - well there may have been more training with the introduction of the new exams but otherwise the teachers were the same.

I find it quite depressing how many times I read on here obviously talented musical students struggling to decide on GCSE subjects being advised that music GCSE is a waste of time for them and isn't needed for studying at A-level. I can't think of other subjects I've heard people advising like that. By the time I did my GCSE music my school's music department were already saying that they would prefer to do the GCSE in 2 years for those who wanted to but offer a 1 year version for those wanting to study music at A level so they could cover more that we would be interested in.



* before the 'you aren't the standard unless you can prove it' brigade jump on me I got a distinction for g4 within 1/2 term of starting private lessons when I moved to a fee-paying school.

Music is not a « fringe « or « extra » subject. It is part and parcel of the essentials of education. it contributes to the development of concentration, the ability to listen, the co-ordination of ear, eye and hand, the ability to work with others, a knowledge of our culture and other cultures, an appreciation of historical development, the development of the imagination – and many other aspects of learning.

It is well known that educationists have thought for many years that participation in musical activities has a beneficial effect on the general learning capacities of children. Modern neurological imagery tends to support this view.

It is over simplistic to talk about putting the popular idea of what constitutes the “basics” first. Of course there are certain basic requirements but the means teachers use to put them in place are many and varied – well they would be if teachers were properly trained and schools adequately equipped.

On reading this thread I am surprised and horrified at what seems to be a legitimate criticism of the current British system of education, and as I said in an earlier post, it isn’t just in England that there appear to be so many shortcomings.

I am inclined to get on my soapbox and shout “Bring back the Colleges of Education”. I believe it was in the late seventies and early eighties that these excellent centres of teacher training were disbanded for political/economic reasons. If I remember rightly no one wanted to go into primary and lower secondary teaching because the salary was too low. So the powers that be decided to let students “put off” their commitment to teaching until they had followed studies which were more open ended. These courses were necessarily less geared to classroom teaching – both in the content of the subjects being taught and in classroom management. Far be it from me to criticise any teacher who has come through the later system and is doing a good job. But I can’t help thinking that the earlier system was better. If there should be a return to basics I suggest that is the point to which we should return. But I don’t suppose any government would review their copy to that extent.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And wholeheartedly about the Colleges of Education! A PGCE seems woefully inadequate compared to the three or four years that we did at these institutions.

I was speaking to someone the other day who had just completed a PGCE - they had eleven hours of training on teaching music, dance, drama and art...not eleven hours on each subject, but ELEVEN HOURS IN TOTAL for the four... .

It seems, from my observations, that young teachers are taught to 'teach by the book' and have little creativity or imagination - let alone the 'basics' themselves. Many that I've seen have poor spelling skills (one had written 'themometar' in a spelling list for the children to take home and learn ) - one had never heard of the word 'lineage' (she pronounced it 'lyne-age') and two, horrifically, SERIOUSLY did not know why we celebrate Easter. GAH.

And I hear tell that the primary teacher on Big Brother didn't know the names of the continents or what the word 'peril' meant.

Sorry - going off-topic here, but I AM the founder member of the GOW society and feel I have to stand up for my members !

That was my point really. I had the dubious distinction of being disliked by several of my teachers in Primary school, for erm... knowing more than they did about certain things. Makes me sound immodest even now, but at the time I was just thoroughly confused by the situation. It would be nice if all Primary teachers did a qualification like the IB, where they have to take a science, maths, english, a language, a humanties and an art, before starting on the techniques of teaching. I'm sure that is very patronising of me though, and completely undervalues the skills such teachers require.

And I would also add, I agree that music education of a decent level needs to begin at Primary schools to be worth the effort. By Secondary, music lessons are far too associated with 'Classical' music, which is so intrinsically 'uncool' as the make the endeaver... even harder?

Those examples don't surprise me much. I have taught undergraduates, who have then gone on to do PGCEs - and with some of them I've been horrified that they have got a place, because I wouldn't want them to teach *my* kids (if I had any).

Part of the problem is teachers' salaries are still too low compared to many other professions, or even just working in a business - although they are comparatively better than they were 10+ years ago. And the other problem is that universities get paid for getting bums on seats - so if they don't have enough students on their PGCE course, they don't get funding, which impacts on lecturers' jobs. So of course, they will take on the less-than-fantastic.

That is quite horrifying. since we are posting about musical literacy I don’t think it’s too far off topic to classroom teachers are/were trained to teach such skills.

I did a three year teacher training course at a College of Education. Music was my main subject and my second subject was Divinity as it was then called. One day a week was devoted to main subjects. Half of that day was spent on teaching techniques, the other half on the study of theory, harmony, history of music at post A Level standard. People doing music main had a first instrument and for some a , second instrument lesson each week. One day a week was devoted to Education – the history and philosophy of education, the practice of classroom management and health education and particular emphasis on the teaching of reading.. The remaining three days were devoted to a variety of subjects. I can remember doing maths, English, general science with a bias towards biology, dance, and physical education and, of course my second subject, Divinity.. We were all time tabled to cover subjects that were not our main subject so, for example, every one had some music even if they were not a mains music student. Each of these subjects covered two aspects – the level at which we students were expected to learn and the practical application in a classroom situation relevant to the age group we had chosen to teach.

We did one teaching practice in schools each year, the third year one lasting the best part of a term. We had to write lesson plans and keep records and we were helped by the teacher of the classes with which we worked and assessed by visiting lecturers from our college.

I daresay the system wasn’t perfect but compared with what seems to go on nowadays I think we had a pretty solid foundation.

All my teaching life I have been grateful for that preparation – without which I wouldn’t have survived many a classroom situation.

Thought I'd better clarify. I don't personally view arts activities as fringe subjects. I fully recognise their value and contribution to child development. I do think though that they are seen that way too often.

What Aquarelle describes does still exist - it's called a B.Ed. Not many people do them, though - maybe because 18 year olds haven't decided what they want to do with their life yet.

I'm interested to hear that the B. Ed still exists. It started just after I left College of Education. In fact people in my year were told whether or not they had passed their Teacher's Certificate well enough to be considered for a fourth year which would add the B. Ed qualification. However it didn't actually start for another year and by that time most of us were established in a teaching post. I couldn't face the prospect of leaving my job and becoming a full time student again so I never took up the offer. In my case I could have done it at the London University Institute of Education.

WhatI wonder now is, since the Colleges of Education no longer exist, where does one go to do a B.Ed, does it really cover the same ground as the Teacher's Certificate, what facilities are available to the students? Do they have a main subject?

I suppose these days it's more difficult for an eighteen year old to decide which path to take. The choices are not as simple as they were for my generation. But many professions require a fairly long training and most of us have to decide at some point how we are going to earn a living.

It would be nice if society recognised that some functions, including that of teaching the next generation,
are worthy of proper training, a decent salary and a fair amount of respect. If that were the case it might be easier for young adults to make career choices.

From what I know (from colleagues), they are taught within the Education faculties of universities. They have a main subject, but from what I've picked up the level is quite low - ie. a music specialist on a BEd course will not have the same level of knowledge about music by the end of their degree than a 'regular' university music student.

Indeed. My partner is a trainee accountant and gets paid an average of, I think, 24k for each of three years of his training. I got paid 6k to train as a primary teacher and this amount was further reduced this year to 4k for new trainees. I have just finished my first year of teaching and have even less money than I did when I started - and when I started I had approx £0. I think teachers suffer because there is an implicit understanding that working with children is somehow not 'real business'. The other day I read an article which bemoaned the fact that a few (secondary) Headteachers now get paid just over £100k. Have I ever read an article bemoaning the fact that an accountant or a doctor or a lawyer can easily take home this amount in a year? No... Grr. When will people realise that this is actually one of the most important and influential jobs in society?

I digress. I agree that my 1-year PGCE was woefully inadequate to prepare me for teaching and believe teacher training courses should be at least 2 years if taught at a postgraduate level. I am one of those who had no more than 11 hours' worth of training in total for music, art, drama etc. (Luckily, I have a musical/art/literary background, though.) I don't understand why teacher training institutions don't have an ongoing programme of music education for trainees throughout their course. (Well, I do - money bla bla bla.) Many teachers at my school have said to me that they enjoy teaching music but don't really know what they're doing - I know others who don't teach music because they don't know how, which I find shocking, especially as it is a National Curriculum subject. "Have you taught maths this term?" "Nah, I'm rubbish at maths - don't really know what I'm doing." "Oh, ok. Me too..." I think not.

Oh, by the way, some of us can spell and are reasonably intelligent. I admit to seeing the nursery teacher going into the BB House and thinking then that some people should not be allowed to work with children - they deserve better...


As I understand it, the BEd is more rare these days. There used to be a BEd at Cambridge (where I trained). This was replaced by a 3-year Education Studies degree, which one would combine with another subject, e.g. geography. However, this course does not confer Qualified Teacher Status so its graduates still have to take the one-year PGCE afterwards.

Interestingly (or not), by the end of my course, the majority of those who had not successfully applied for jobs were graduates of the Educational Studies course...

I do think it is a case of literacy. I believe we should teach children to read and write music as these are two of the four elements that make musical experience possible: reading, writing, listening and making. If children are taught to read and write music they are empowered to be creative in new ways and have another way to communicate their ideas (and the development of communication skills is, to my mind, one of the most important jobs of early education). Granted it is perfectly possible to play and appreciate music without knowledge of Western notation, but we do teach the Arabic numeric system which is the basis for our Western system of mathematics, and we teach the Roman alphabet which is the notated basis of our language system... With a knowledge of musical notation, children have access both to the Western tradition and can still explore and study music of other cultures; without it, they cannot go as far, should they wish.

I don't think they should be FORCED to read music..
Just taught to understand the benefits, and if they still don't want to, then it's their choice.
I have friends who teach themselves instruments and music by ear. Does that count as ear training in some way.. lol

I so agree with all you say, benjaminja...oh, and I'm sorry if I implied that all new teachers are unable to spell! It's just that I have noticed, as with the BB girl, a distinctly lower level of intelligence, awareness, ability in recent years . As you say, children deserve better than a teacher like this - as Kodály said, 'Only the best is good enough [for children]'.

I was talking to a recently-retired ex-colleague not long ago. She told me that when she did her teacher training, any student who was not already able to play the piano was taught to do so as part of the course!!

You've said it in a nutshell!

For a devastating critique of teacher training in the US, but to a large extent also applicable to the UK, AFAIK, see here. Note particularly the two views of the purpose of education. My own knowledge of teacher training in the UK is very small, but I have discussed the Reading University PGCE course with some of my fellow music graduates. One of these reckoned that the only useful part of the year was the in-school experience.

I agree that notation is only necessary for Western art music, though also useful for jazz ensembles. I note, however, that in the musical traditions that lack notation, musicians typically serve a long apprenticeship, and the most complex ensembles are considerably simpler than much Western orchestral music. One of the features of music in the UK is the large number of amateurs, playing in orchestras and chamber music, some of them to a high standard. Notation is what makes it possible for them to play some of the music of the masters without 10 or 15 years of full-time study.

IIRC, several people who have taken GCSE music, or observed it at close quarters, have described it in other forums as a waste of time for anyone intended to take A-level music. For that matter, I got a reasonable degree in music without taking it at A-level, but I started it after about 50 years of amateur and semi-professional playing.