Read the article below by Lis McCullough
The new primary curriculum
As this is the first Editorial of 2010, let me start by wishing everyone a happy and prosperous New Year!
As January is traditionally a time when we look to the future, I’m going to concentrate on some of the opportunities and challenges for music arising from the forthcoming changes to the primary curriculum. However, don’t stop reading just because that may not be your specific focus – because the primary phase is part of a lifetime continuum and so inevitably links with what occurs before, after and concurrently, both inside and outside the school context.
Despite all the music initiatives around at present, the only statutory entitlement a child has is that provided by the National Curriculum. Currently going through the parliamentary process as part of the Children, Schools and Families Bill, the new curriculum, to be introduced autumn 2011, follows the recommendations of Sir Jim Rose’s independent review* published last April. Although the curriculum is now to be organised round six areas of learning, individual subjects have not, as has sometimes been suggested in the press, lost their discrete identities and the area of learning Understanding the Arts* is comprised of music, drama, dance and art (good to see dance and drama included). The advantage of grouping subjects in this way is to facilitate links not only between subjects within each area, but also across different areas of learning, thus helping children make conceptual and meaningful links across all their learning. The challenge is to do this in ways that remain true to the nature of each subject involved and help develop each subject. We need to ensure deep level links rather than superficial ones such as the commonly found ‘singing a song about…’ in order to enhance another subject. An activity needs to have musical value and relevance. We need to ensure pupils gain musically. Having said that, music is, of course, well able to support other areas of development – and if you haven’t yet looked at it I recommend Susan Hallam’s overview of research* recently released to link with Tune In – Year of Music*.
The published areas of learning contain the common knowledge and key skills in any one such area as well as showing individual subjects within curriculum progression. The devil, as always, is in the detail, and the quality of a child’s experience depends on how the words on paper are translated into the practice of a living curriculum. For example, I wonder how the music subject specific points identified for the middle and later stages of the primary phase (see Understanding the Arts p. 6) will be interpreted. This of course links with wider issues of progression. What do we mean by progression in music? How can we define it? How can we recognise it? The recently published Ofsted booklet Making more of music: Improving the quality of music teaching in primary schools*, which builds on the report published last February, asks ‘What are the most important outcomes we want to achieve in relation to musical progress, involving pupils in additional musical experiences and the broader contribution of music to pupils’ personal development?’ (p. 3). As often happens there are more questions than answers because surely that question links with deeper questions about the nature and importance of music itself. Why is music included in the curriculum? What do we mean by ‘music education’?
Creative and cross-curricular approaches are certainly not new. However, planning of the curriculum – long, medium and short-term – will be a key issue before September 2011 and although many schools are already working in this more holistic way, others will need to undertake considerable preparation. Early in 2010 the QCDA is setting out a new section on its website, including a planning tool emphasising whole curriculum change; while the National College is organising a series of regional one-day conferences in February and March 2010 for headteachers, senior leaders and curriculum co-ordinators. There will also be other opportunities for support at national, regional and local levels.
Teaching Music is, of course, our own subject specific space to share and discuss concerns, practice and achievements and possibilities. We don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel when we can so easily access our varied community of music educators. However, in preparation for writing this piece I put ‘cross curricular’ into the Search box. To begin with about three pages of related material appeared. But once I added ‘primary’ to filter those results, only very few were left. It would be great if we could build a resource bank relating to these curriculum changes over the next eighteen months. Please contribute – and encourage primary colleagues to join in, perhaps by reassuring them that they don’t have to be ‘the music person’ with high levels of specialist subject knowledge and expertise. This is the concern, in all senses, of the whole primary sector.
Lis McCullough
lis.mccullough@name.org.uk
*Related websites
Sir Jim Rose’s final report is at www.dcsf.gov.uk/primarycurriculumreview
Documents relating to the new primary curriculum, together with the Understanding the arts area of learning that includes music, are available at www.dcsf.gov.uk/newprimarycurriculum
Susan Hallam’s research paper, The power of music: its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people, is at www.ioe.ac.uk/Year_of_Music.pdf
Tune In – Year of Music website www.dcsf.gov.uk/tunein
Making more of music: Improving the quality of music teaching in primary schools is available from www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/090084 NB. The equivalent for secondary schools is downloadable from www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/090085
QCDA support documents for the new curriculum are due to be available at http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk from early this year
The National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services www.nationalcollege.org.uk
