How to teach Primary Music
David Wheway, Hilary Miles and Jonathan Barnes
How to teach Secondary Music
Hanh Doan and David Guinane
How to teach Instrumental & singing lessons
Karen Marshall and Penny Stirling Collins, £12.99 each
The necessity of being a reflective teacher is something that MT can repeat again and again.
It's easy to say, but just as easy to go a term, or a year, or perhaps even longer, without having really looked at how one is teaching. Particularly if things seem to be going well – or as well as one might hope – and if that feeling is backed up by years of successful personal experience.
Teachers shouldn't let the title of this series put them off. MT readers might initially think, on one level, that they can certainly teach already, so a book like this is probably not for them; similarly, one might also think that if the target market is people who really don't know how to teach, then a book is hardly going to help.
However, the books’ format and subtitle give a better idea of what to expect: each volume is made up of ‘100 Inspiring Ideas’, each engagingly laid out on one, or occasionally two, pages. These aren't going to tell you how to teach: they are giving you ideas as to how you might approach specific aspects of teaching.
Having said that, they would certainly be useful to those starting out on a teaching career – one particular group which could benefit from the Instrumental and singing lessons book, for example, could be those music students without much teaching experience themselves but who are, almost inevitably, pushed to teaching as a way to make ends meet. By reading this in an evening, or even flicking through it before their first lesson, they could certainly become better teachers. And, as the primary book points out, although many primary teachers have very little experience of music, let alone musical training, it is ‘as much about pedagogy as it is about skills’.
Some of this series’ writers are MT contributors: Hanh Doan, David Guinane and Karen Marshall, in particular, will be familiar names, and all of the writers have extremely solid professional experience in their fields.
The primary book is roughly divided into seven sections: ‘Getting started’, ‘Moving on’, ‘Music within the school day’, ‘Creative starting points’, ‘Active listening’, ‘Music in the environment’, ‘Enhancing music with technology’, and ‘Beyond the classroom’. Many of the suggestions in these sections outline how to run simple musical games – providing a range of possibilities for any given situation – and include suggestions for ‘taking it further’: for example, a tuned percussion game involving improvised melodies, group play, isolating a particular player and encouraging the rest of the class to respond can be developed further by asking children to take on the teacher's role of ‘conductor’; or a throwing game to encourage rhythm skills could also include rolling or bouncing.
The section on technology suggest several potentially useful resources and ways to use them, again, useful both for more and less experienced teachers. The final section provides practical guidance that will be helpful to many, from reassurances on how stave notation is not a pre-requisite for successful music-making, to how to engage with specialist instrumental teachers, percussion storage and maintenance, and putting on a performance.
The secondary book is, naturally, aimed at specialist teachers and so assumes a deeper level of knowledge. Hanh Doan and David Guinane outline their approach as ‘music is everything in music education’. Its sections are ‘Everyday essentials’, ‘Assessment and feedback’, ‘KS3 classroom’, ‘KS4 and KS5 classroom’, ‘Technology’, ‘Extra-curricular ensembles’, ‘Beyond the classroom’, ‘Raising the profile of the department’, ‘Surviving as a practitioner’, and ‘Flourishing as a practitioner’. If nothing else, this gives a good idea of the range of responsibilities awaiting a classroom music teacher! The ideas range from physical and vocal warmups to measuring and encouraging progression (with and without levels), to engaging with different styles of music, composition, harmony, technology, conducting and developing instrumental and vocal ensembles, music tours, musicals, establishing links with other schools and the local music hub, personal development, and more.
Karen Marshall and Penny Stirling ask readers to consider two fundamental ideas in the instrumental and singing book: ‘Is my teaching music-focused?’, and ‘Is my teaching student-focused?’. Again, the book covers a wide range of topics, including communicating with pupils, parents and carers, how to approach the very first lesson, appropriate teaching styles for young, older and adult students, teaching about performance from the start, and dealing with exams (performance, Grade 5 theory and GCSE or A-level assessments) – among many, many more.
Overall, this a useful, approachable series which is sure to have something for teachers of all types.
