Hello everyone

For a university assignment I'm looking at the role of music in schools (primary and secondary). My main question is "is music seen as a less important subject?" I'm looking for some general comments from different groups of people, school teachers, instrumental teachers, students etc about opinions of music in schools. Is it seen as unimportant? If so, why? Is enough time and money dedicated to music? In your experience, do children enjoy music lessons? Is music well taught? Any comments or observations will be useful. and very much appreciated.

Thanks!

Sylvia

I'm an ex-student.

In my primary and secondary schools, music was seen as a less important subject (although, going by what's been said on the forums, the teaching we got was pretty good). I guess this is primarily because putting lots of music on the timetable wouldn't help you pass the SATs whereas putting lots of maths english and science on it would.

I also think that music at my secondary school was 'dumbed down' way too much. This meant that I didn't really enjoy it because I wanted to do 'proper music with theory and stuff' and instead was subjected to playing nursery rhymes on keyboards, bashing the life out of tambourines and song-writing (the emphasis was on thinking of the words, not the music!), so didn't choose it for GCSE, which meant it didn't even cross my mind that maybe I should do it for A level, which has now left me in a position that I won't be able to do a course at univerisity which I want to do, even though I'm pretty sure I would be capable of doing it.

You would do well to take a look at interim findings of the Rose Report to give it some context, at least at primary level. The qca site may be a useful resource:

http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_20435.aspx

Good luck - quite a fraught area to do justice to I would imagine!

It varies from place to place. My county music service have just cut seven full time equivalent peri posts and offering lessons every two weeks. Last year they scrapped the Youth Music Initiative. A lot of music work in primaries is done by parents helping out. Though not to the same lengths, other authorities around me have been cutting back and prioritising 'exam results'.

Before I get on my soapbox I will say other areas probably value music for what it is worth, but I don't know enough to comment.

I'm a student (17) at an independent school, and the music department is excellent! We have proper music lessons up to year 9 which include theory and composition. Many of the students have private instrument lessons, and attend theory clubs to do grades 3 & 5. There are at least 2-3 ensembles meeting every lunchtime and formtime (a kind of snack break - but the musicians tend to ignore the food and play instead! ) For GCSE the classes are very small (7 students was the record - but then it is a teeny weeny school of 150 students aged 10-18) and everyone has grade 5 theory at least! I chose not to do A level music because it clashed with chemistry, but my friends do it and love it! They are in a class of 2. However, the state school in the nearby town is much bigger (about 600 pupils) and we've heard that music is practically non-existent there - the teacher has no keyboard or instrument knowlegde, and there are no extra-curricular activities. There isn't even a working piano. Hearing this and other stories from people on the forum make me really appreciate how lucky I am to have the music department at school, but it really isn;t fair that there is such a variation! Hope this was helpful

I've been in independant schools that have very poorly resourced music departments, whilst the state school down the road is fully kitted out with a suite of practise rooms, keyboard studio, teaching classrooms, music studio with full recording facilities and a technology suite. In the current times it's much more about what each individual school (state and private) is prepared to invest in - the development of specialist status in most schools has been a driving factor in this. My local school is an excellent school academically, but the music department is a joke. Meanwhile, a school a little further away, with performing arts status, is brilliant for music, and at this time, this is where I would send my children (don't actually need to make this decision for another couple of years). Interestingly, another school I know of has recently opted into the state sector (previously private) through the academy route, and as a consequence has just built a fantastic state of the art music department (it could not have afforded to do this if it remained in the independant sector).

As a peri teacher (16 schools) and parent I would say it varies a lot depending on the catchment, the motivation of the head and music co-ordinator, whether the school has specialist status etc. I teach in 'good' and 'bad' schools, and 'good' is not always where you would expect. Middle class schools (ie with wealthier parents) usually get kids who learn instruments, play in orchestras etc, but NOT ALWAYS. One of my secondaries boasts its academic reputation but is dire for music because kids don't stay after school (live a long way out, buses etc) so there are no orchestras, bands etc however hard the music dept tries. Another rural school has late buses and helpful parents, and kids all stay on after school - fantastic provision and results. The cost of individual music lessons is a huge problem for less well off families, particularly at Secondary, where there is no longer any subsidy.

I am also doing wider opps clases in primary - and this is a much better scenario, it happens in school time, no cost to parents, lots of enthusiastic involvment from pupils AND staff. In our area only those schools that want it get wider opps, so it's the more enthusiastic schools who are prepared to be flexible with timetables. Of course its also the younger (y3/4) kids, not those doing SATS.

It's noticeable that some primaries do not want peri lessons in the mornings during literacy/numeracy, so then the kids complain when they get taken out of art/drama/pe in the afternoon because that's their 'fun time'. They are always happy to come out of Lit/Num in my experience, although then the teachers complain! I also have to be very flexible with secondary lessons, arrranging before school/lunchtimes/going at different times of day, to avoid missing class lessons. Some class teachers make it very difficult for kids to go out for a music lesson, one teacher-parent insisted his kid could only have lessons if in the lunch hour, which meant that the other kids never got the lunch hour etc. I frequently get kids that don't show up because they can't get out of a lesson. One head even tells peris that school work takes priority, even when parents have paid for lessons!

I am 17 and a student at sixth form.
At my primary/junior school we didn't even have music lessons!! We sang in assembly though and shows were put on at christmas and at the end of the school year, but if you didn't take part in them or if you didn't have instrumental lessons, you didn't really do any kind of music.
So when I went to my secondary school it was like heaven having one 'real' music lesson a week. We didn't do all that much however, most of the time we were just told to go off on a keyboard and play. I took it for GCSE, it was a better, there was 14 in our class, however we had a new teacher (there also was only one music teacher in the department, who taught near enough 500 different students in 1 week!) and we put on more shows and things also there were more trips, and there was gradually new equipment and music department became more alive. However the music department only consisted of 1 room with keyboards, guitars and a piano in and 6 practice rooms. The school itself I don't think took music very seriously and was considered a 'doss' lesson, however the school is a fantastic school academically. The new music teacher was briliant though and does as much as she can to help improve the department.
I have now moved to a sixth form at a different school because my other school didn't have one and have a lovely 4 hours of music lessons a week. It is a specialist music college and is brilliant. They have 4 classrooms equip with several imacs in each with Sibelius 5 and Logic 8 software and a midi keyboard attatched to each, a recording studio and a full range of instruments a few practice rooms and one being a large ensemble practice room/classroom and a theatre! yet the department still think they need to be bigger! and there are several ensembles and after school activities always going on.
I think it really does depend up on how seriously the school takes music.

"I think it really does depend up on how seriously the school takes music."

I think your final words are probably the most poignant! ultimately it really is down to the attitude of the Head Teacher (particularly in primary schools). I'm a specialist (on staff) working in a large infant and junior school in Birmingham. However, I know that this position would not exist at all were it not for the support of my two head teachers. And with the new primary reforms I fear that things may become even worse, with further freedom for the curriculum being placed with individual schools. A nice idea in theory, but without the support of a compassionate leadership team, how will music survive?

Music across my own school thrives because it is seen as a valuable subject, but Im only too aware - as the recent Ofsted report on Music Provision details - that this is not the norm for most primary schools. This is hte saddest thing, because it's within this age that music is at its most valuable. Both for the development of the children musically and because of the way music can be used as a powerful tool to support learning cross-curricularly.

It is all about education. Educating the staff and parents about the value music has not just in its own right, but in all areas of learning and child development. As Kodaly said - we should be aiming to develop well-rounded individuals to go forward in society. I'm not convinced that we are doing this with a focus weighted too heavily on the core subjects. Yes, they are important - but so is adequate exposure to the other areas of the curriculum!

Many teachers at primary level are also afraid to teach music. They feel underskilled because they did not receive adequate time in their initial teacher training. How can we expect teachers entering the profession to teach a completely new language, within a complex subject, for which they have little experience and no formal literary understanding?! Of course they are going to shy away from it and therefore the cycle continues!

As a specialist I also work alongside the staff in my school to skill them in the teaching of music education. Although I do teach the majority of the music, I give INSET and encourage them constantly to make use of cross-curricular resources to extend their teaching and the learning opportunities for their children. The new SingUp programme and website, will hopefully go some way into bridging this gap and helping lost teachers find some way in teaching music in the primary curriculum. Again, however, for each school signed up to the initative and starting their musical journey, there are three other schools who have no knowledge of it, who are still not teaching music adequately, because their sole focus is on an unbalanced curriculum.

It is sad to think this is the case, when children really do gain so much from music education. I feel until proper time is given to teacher training and appropriate value is placed on music in the curriculum as a whole, in all schools, this may never be the case for the great majority of children in our primary schools.

I do Wider Opps teaching in several schools. These are obviously schools who are taking some interest in music, as they have bid for the scheme in the first place. Despite this, I'm aware that in some of the schools I work in, the Wider Opps teaching is actually the only music tuition the children are getting. This is not meant to be the idea at all, as it means that they're not getting taught the music curriculum. It's actually worrying how little general music they know. A while ago, we asked one class of children (year 4) to name a classical composer; the only answer we got was 'David Bowie'. Somewhat worrying...

I would say that music is often considered to be a less important subject. I agree with Sarah123 in that the main reason for this is probably as it's not in the SATS exams, which are the way a school's success is measured. Also, I think many parents would consider subjects such as Maths, Science and English to be more important than Music. Essentially, a school has to keep the parents happy!

I think children do rather enjoy music lessons, especially when there's a focus on practical music. I think this can seem much more fun, as it's so different from the sort of work they'd do in other subjects. Also, if you can actually link some of the things they're learning to the music they listen to, it seems much more relevant to them than some of the other things they learn. Hope some of that's helpful!