Category: Education

  • What makes an outstanding lesson?

    Any opportunity to critically reflect on my practice as a teacher is always welcome, and today I was fortunate enough to attend a seminar reflecting on what outstanding teaching looks like, led by the music teacher who taught me as a teenager. My own music teachers were pivotal in shaping my career choice and fostering…

  • Can we teach composition?

    After another batch of coursework is complete for GCSE and A-level music I like to look back and reflect on the year. I firmly believe in composition being an integral part of these examinations as it is the natural culmination of the study of musical rhetoric, in terms if its theoretical and stylistic constructs, and…

  • Guest post – Jonathan Savage’s Blog

    Jonathan Savage kindly invited me to respond to a question about the future of a classroom based music education. My response was originally published on Jonathan’s blog (2nd December 2011). What is the future of school-based music education in the United Kingdom? It seems difficult to suggest what the future of school-based music might be. Extra-curricular…

  • National Plan for Music Education

    I finally had the opportunity to read the National Plan for Music on a commute this afternoon. I’ve extracted some points that particularly grabbed me as being interesting in that, for me, lacked real precision. Some are just interesting and made me think. I’ll reflect on them more fully as the week goes on. I’ll…

  • Tosca to Bostridge in 24 hours

    Tosca at ENO last night was compelling and very moving. Puccini always strikes me as a brilliant orchestrator and I was particularly taken by the cello ensemble writing accompanying Mario in the final act, the off-stage playing and the use of a chamber organ. Puccini’s operas seem to be so complete in their design and…

  • Connect CPD

    It was fantastic to catch Sean Gregory, Director of Creative Learning at the Barbican and Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Sean took the time to speak more about the continuing professional development in creative leadership offered by the Guildhall School to help me write an article for Music Education UK (Spring 2012). I attended…

  • Reflections on writing a musical

    The set has finally been dismantled for Juniper Dreams. It made me realise how much had passed to get the project from the initial conception – my colleague Deborah suggesting we write one – to the performances last week was a rewarding learning curve. It represents the longest musical work I have written and I’m…

  • Feedback from last week

    I’m yet to reflect on the writing process but Deborah and I are very grateful for the kind words parents, pupils and colleagues have shared with us about the musical. “There were some really memorable songs, including the fugal facebok one, but most of all I enjoyed the really sophisticated harmonies and subtle timbres of…

  • Juniper Dreams – Show week

    Rather amazed how fast show week has appeared; costumes, set, lights, technical bits and orchestration all coming together. Challenges abound but they’re invigorating ones and tomorrow is the dress rehearsal so I’m looking forward to seeing how far it has come. Yesterday was the band call and it was exciting to hear the score come…

  • Preserving a canon?

    I keep returning to the forum post about the dumbing down of music in the classroom and seeing more comments that still negate the importance of content. As the work of the Prince’s Teaching Institute extols – it is rigorous subject-based teaching that is of real educational value and not the pedagogy-obsessed national curriculum. The…