Improving the transition from KS5 to university music courses

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The changes to the curriculum in the last 10-15 years have left many students struggling to adapt to university music courses, many of which continue to prize the same skills and/or knowledge areas as they did decades ago. Do you think this is a serious problem? If so, what can be done about it? Are universities entirely to blame, or are they right to persevere with an emphasis on independent study skills, functional harmony and knowledge of the classical 'canon'? Should school exam boards take universities more into account when designing specifications? Do you as teachers have time to teach beyond the exam requirements to prepare students for university life? It's an old, but still relevant chestnut, and there seems to be an alarmingly low level of interaction between the further and higher education sectors at present. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this. With this in mind, the music department of Royal Holloway, University of London is inviting teachers of A level, IB and BTEC Music to a range of its lectures and seminars on 8, 9 and 11 March, in an effort to stimulate dialogue between school and university music teachers. For more information, including details of how to book your place, see the news story on the Music Teacher magazine website (www.rhinegold.co.uk/musicteacher). (An article looking at this issue in more detail will appear in Classroom Music summer term 1 2009/10, to be published on 29 March. Academic research in this area has been done by Julia Winterson and Michael Russ of Huddersfield University in 'Understanding the transition from school to university in music and music technology', in Arts and Humanities in Higher Education vol 8 no 3, 2009).)
 

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We found that feedback from ex-students was that there were knowledge and skill holes that became very apparent in their first year on Music courses at Uni - even from double 6th form Music students who took Music Tech + pure/straight A level Music. The most prominent areas reported were the massively un-represented task of arranging and the more vocational group organisational/entrepreneurial event organising skills that the new Creative & Media lines of learning address so well through Festival and Scene etc. The answer for us came through designing our own rigorous L3 BTEC course that caters for our rock and pop performers. I think that's the beauty of that offer. I suppose that we are fortunate to be in a position to offer L3 BTEC alongside straight A level Music (in partnership with a neighboring school), AS & A2 Music Tech and from September L2 & L3 C&Media.
Most recently I had heard severe whining from ex-students at Uni struggling with Schenkerian analysis.....oh how we laughed!! (deja vu...) I think there definately needs to be more 'bridging' dialogue between Universities and schools especially re: engaging with vocational lines of learning and creative apprenticeships. The fantastic Inspire Works would make a great case study - blending a passion for world musics, raising awareness of poverty and successful commerce.
It's great to see Classroom Music featuring research here and keeping this issue on the boil. Ben
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bens8n
A long time ago
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Further to my last comments, it is heartening to see that universities are wanting to engage in discussion with schools – and Classroom Music are to be congratulated in helping to facilitate this development. Perhaps to complete the picture, university lecturers could be invited into local schools to see/hear what music education at KS3/4/5 is all about these days?

Musicteacher is right to point out the problems with the academic vs vocational. I don’t think the problem is so much with these terms, but how we often perceive these terms. There is an assumption that academic = intellectual and that vocational does not. All the recent research and commentary emphatically deny that this is the case (see Ken Robinson, for instance). Vocational routes do have an intellectual dimension – or should do when they are done well!
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David Ashworth
A long time ago
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It seems strange to me that universities still prize the same knowledge areas as decades ago. Universities are part of the same social and cultural changes that have influenced schools reconsidering what and how they teach. I am surprised universities feel they are somehow immune from this. In fact changes - at 10-15 - are as much to do with pedagogical styles as content - something that I would hope universities do reflect on!

I was interested in the way independent study skills functional harmony and the classical canon was linked. I’d be quite happy to concentrate on the first one and reconsider the other two. Certainly I agree with earlier comments that we should put the emphasis on our role as teachers on enabling young people to engage in music making and not worry too much about whether we make them fit for university life - and what seems (looking the lecture titles!) a very narrowly conceived version of musicianship!

I not really sure the issue is with universities being too academic. It is more an inability for some universities – surely not all – to situate their knowledge construction as culturally specific.

As binarisms go the academic/vocational one seems a very unhelpful one. Is there not a way of seeing a practical engagement with music as an intellectual one? Certainly its quite common for schools to see an academic route being for the brightest.

It seems good that lectures are beginning a dialogue with teachers but it does appear to be a very limited one here.
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Musicteacher
A long time ago
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I should have said that department staff at Royal Holloway would welcome the opportunity to talk to teachers during the course of their visit, and this has been added to the Music Teacher news item now. I know that the event was primarily designed with the attendance of schools relatively close to Holloway in mind, appreciating the difficulty that teachers from further away might have - but this should in no way discourage those more remote teachers from going if interested!

Thanks for your thoughts about the problems of assuming that university is always best, David. The issue of vocational vs academic further/higher education needs careful thought, and adapting university courses to try to suit every music-related student clearly isn't the right way to go about it. Nevertheless, lots of students do want to follow a more academic pathway and are currently finding the transition from school to university courses more problematic than perhaps it might be.
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Classroom Music magazine
A long time ago
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Love the video clip. Really thought provoking and hopefully will get people thinking in an 'alternative' direction. Also thanks for the info on the seminars. This is something I've been thinking about for my own students as there will be one in around 15 hoping to take a 'traditional' music course at University level. I don't have much to contribute as of yet but perhaps after the seminars will have something more solid to say??...
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JEN HURST
A long time ago
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Hi Chris and thanks for launching this very interesting topic for debate.

It is not clear from the information available on the Music Teacher website exactly how attending these lectures will stimulate debate. Lectures will run as normal and (as far as I can see) no time or space has been set aside for discussion. Is this correct? If this is the case, then I think that music teachers will have a hard time justifying taking a day off school to find out about things they probably know about already. After all, many of them studied on courses like these so will have a good idea of what to expect.

The other problem is more fundamental and is to do with the expectation that we should be sending the majority of our students to universities anyway. There is an excellent article on David Price’s blog where he says: “The UK disease of down-grading vocational training, (and therefore further education colleges), as a second-best alternative to academia, has caused incalculable harm, not only to our economic competitiveness, but also to young people's morale. Organisations like Edge have fought a difficult, and sometimes solitary, battle to restore some sense of balance in the debate over higher vs further education, but it feels like the argument is about to turn in their favour.”

Worth finding out more about Edge? I think so, especially after watching this:

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David Ashworth
A long time ago
 
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