Thursday, February 19, 2009
Making More of Music
A comprehensive review of music education across Primary and Secondary schools by Ofsted has been published this month.
The title of the report, "Making More of Music" is a good summary of its conclusions about what schools need to do to improve their music education.
The identifying feature of schools judged as outstanding for music education was implementing a strategy (with active support of the senior management) which ensured all pupils in the school were actively involved in music. The Ofsted inspectors observed that when this whole school engagement was achieved "it impacted on personal development as well as musical development". The report makes a clear distinction between this approach and the more common one of providing musical opportunities for children and young people to access if they choose to, " simply offering opportunities to all did not necessarily ensure that provision included all pupils sufficiently". In both primary and secondary schools it was found that "actively selecting pupils for extra musical opportunities was very underdeveloped."
The report is based on Ofsted Inspection reports into music teaching between 2005-2008 covering 84 Primary and 95 Secondary schools.
Overall the provision for schools was found to be good or outstanding in half of the schools visited, with a higher percentage of inadequate provision found in Secondary schools.
The main weakness in the half of all schools inspected whose music provision was judged to be satisfactory or less was "the lack of emphasis on increasing the quality and depth of pupils' musical responses, inconsistency of musical experiences within and across key stages and ineffective assessment". There was an identified lack of understanding about what "making musical progress" looks like in many schools.
Increased musical opportunities in schools have become available due to increased government funding of over £100m in the last three years but the report finds, "increased activity was not necessarily leading to improved provision", largely because experiences which were provided by the funding were often provided in isolation and not built upon.
The report suggests increased training for existing music specialist staff alongside a greater understanding of the features of good musical education at all levels, including senior management. The Teaching Music website and the Sing Up programme are cited as examples of government initiatives which have been successful and should be expanded.
The Ofsted Making More of Music Report
The Sing Up initiative.
The Teaching Music website.