Curriculum Case Study: Mixed-age primary curriculum
Background:
In 2022, the team at Music Education Solutions was commissioned to create a bespoke curriculum for a primary school in the North East of England. This school is a mixed-age school with three classes R/1, 2/3, and 4/5/6 and they wanted a new music curriculum which would work for this structure, would be unique to their school, reflect their local community in some way, and which could be taught by non-specialist class teachers.
Curriculum Structure:
The curriculum is structured as a one-year rotation, rather than an A/B two-year rotation as is in common use in many mixed-age schools. This is partly because the year groups at this school are not standardised (with the lower two classes encompassing two year groups each, and the remaining three year groups grouped together as one class), and therefore an A B structure would only make logical sense in the lower year groups. Another reason for this structure is to make the curriculum simple and easy to use – mixed-age teaching is quite complicated enough already, without having to work out where on earth you are in the documentation all the time! And finally, the curriculum content is carefully designed to enable the same structure to be used each year whilst still providing topic variation, ensuring coverage of a range of different musical styles and traditions. There is an overall focus for each term (discussed in the progression section below) made up of two half-termly units which explore this focus in different ways and through different musical styles and traditions.
Curriculum Content
With a one-year repeating structure, the curriculum could run the risk of becoming incredibly narrow in scope. We also wanted to avoid the feeling for the children that they had ‘done this topic already’ as they reached the upper end of their class, whilst still gaining the benefit of that previous experience in terms of enabling the deepening of learning. Therefore, we chose to base each half-termly topic around a different style of music from within a list of categories:
- Global folk and traditional music
- Western classical music
- Global film music
- Global dance music
- Western Popular music
In the curriculum plan for this first year, Y4/5/6 are completing units on Indian Classical, EDM, John Williams, Polyphony, Blues, and Verse Chorus structure. Next year, when the curriculum repeats, the teacher is able to use the overarching category to substitute in a new individual musical style. This should ensure both broad coverage of musical traditions, and that the style they are substituting in will work to deliver the musical focus (because it will have similar key features to explore). For example, Blues could be substituted by Jazz, John Williams by Hans Zimmer, and so on.
Creativity is very much at the heart of this curriculum, so composing and improvising take centre stage, in line with the pedagogic approaches pioneered by John Paynter, and Keith Swanwick. This decision was made for pedagogic reasons but also was influenced by budgetary and timing considerations; creating new music for children to learn, or licensing other people’s music for that purpose is expensive and time-consuming. In any case the school already have established singing and instrumental programmes running alongside the curriculum providing this function. Within the main curriculum, listening and performing skills are developed to provide inspiration for, rehearsal, performance and assessment of creative work.
Curriculum Progression:
In common with every curriculum we have designed we ensured progression by planning on a spiral. We chose to centre our curriculum spiral around three ‘functional’ aspects of music: movement (pitch, rhythm, tempo), expression (dynamics, timbre, texture) and organisation (structure and notation). This allows the full range of ‘interrelated dimensions of music’ to be covered in a one-year cycle, and also allows for a greater amount of differentiation of skill within each unit, to cater for the different experience and skill levels seen in mixed-age classes. For example, grouping dynamics, timbre and texture together under the banner of ‘musical expression’ allows for creative responses which make a feature of one, two or three of these elements, allowing the teacher to adjust the level of challenge. As another example, when working on ‘Musical Movement’ in Year R, children are asked to ‘join in with singing well-known nursery rhymes and songs’ and ‘use voice and instruments to create different sounds’, and when they return to this the following year as Year 1 pupils the level of challenge increases to ‘…using their voices expressively within a group’ and ‘…to reproduce short rhythmic patterns. In this way all children in the class are catered for at an appropriate level. (It is important also to state that teachers are not tied to using these different levels of challenge just with children of the appropriate age but can move children on to the next level in advance of their age if they are progressing well.)
Curriculum Support:
This curriculum project was designed so that the non-specialist teachers could gradually take more ownership of it over time. The Progression of Skills document and Curriculum Map were presented to the teachers in a staff meeting to allow for questions and clarifications, and then for the Autumn Term full lesson plans (short term planning) were provided, again followed up in a staff meeting to ensure that the teachers understood how to deliver them. This approach was supported later in the term with a general INSET session around the pedagogy of music teaching, allowing the teachers to deepen their delivery skills and gain more confidence with using the materials. At the time of writing the plan is to provide medium term planning for the Spring Term units, and for the Summer Term to be presented as a long-term plan, so that the teachers gradually take back control of the planning process. However, this approach will be reviewed regularly as the project progresses.
Curriculum Impact:
At the time of writing, we are halfway through the first term of this curriculum. Feedback from teachers and pupils has so far been positive, and we look forward to seeing how this develops over the course of the year.
Dr Elizabeth Stafford, November 2022. Copyright © 2022 Music Education Solutions Limited. All Rights Reserved.
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