Music to please Ofsted

Do your music lessons sound good? If not, there’s work to be done, suggests James Garnett, chair of NAME, having examined Ofsted’s recent re

In March, Ofsted published its report, Music in schools: wider and wider still, following visits to 90 primary and 90 secondary schools between 2008 and 2011. This article draws out three themes of the report: the need for high quality music-making, the importance of singing, and the need to work through music.

High quality music

“Most pupils appeared to enjoy the activity, but the sound was dreadful.”

With these refreshingly candid words Ofsted offers us a glimpse of one whole-class strings lesson experienced by 30 Y4 pupils. This comment provides a straightforward measure of musical quality that anyone can use: does it sound good? If not, then some action needs to be taken.

High quality must be an intrinsic part of music education because hearing the sound produced is as much a part of musical learning for a child as producing it. If we are prepared to accept poor sounding music (and Ofsted found that children are often over praised for poor sounding music), then we are teaching children that the sounds they are making pass muster as music. Now children aren’t daft. They are surrounded by music, and they will know substandard singing or playing when they hear it. So if we accept poor-quality music making, we are telling them two things. We are saying “I know this doesn’t sound good, so do you, but it is all you are capable of”; or we are saying “This doesn’t sound like music, but it is how we make music in school.” In either case, children will compare what they produce with the music they know and come to the conclusion that they can’t do music.

The importance of singing

Singing is not just an enjoyable musical activity in its own right. Ofsted regards it as a fundamental part of all musical learning because it supports the internalisation of sound. Singing produces sound from within the body just as listening processes sound within the head. The two work together to develop musical understanding in the same way that speaking and listening contribute to verbal language development.

For children to make progress, they need to sing regularly – in class as well as in assemblies. Singing provides a way of introducing work with instruments as well as composing – allowing children to internalise sound, as well as being valued for its own sake.

As with all music, the quality of singing is important. Warm-up games help children to develop techniques that will enable them to control their voices. These can be selected as preparation for a song, or to unpick a particular problem you have noticed along the way (because it wasn’t sounding good!) .

Teaching through music
Ofsted observed both specialist and non-specialist staff teaching good and outstanding music lessons. The absolutely crucial issue for specialist and generalist alike was that “Pupils’ musical understanding was developed most effectively in lessons where musical sound was the dominant language for teaching and learning. Where words were used – whether in the spoken or written form – they were used to support learning and explain what the pupils had already experienced and understood musically.” Where teaching was inadequate, it was often because too much time was spent talking about music, and too little spent doing it.

Modelling is a crucial part of musical teaching, enabling pupils to hear and understand what they are trying to achieve. This means that you need to prepare for the lesson by trying out the musical task children will be working on. Not only will this enable you to demonstrate confidently, but it will help you find out which parts of the task are hardest to do and hardest to explain.

For example, if the pupils will be composing a piece of music about a storm at sea in order to develop their understanding of texture and dynamics, compose your own version. If you use a pitched instrument, do you limit the choice of notes you use? What other roles would you need in a group to add to the texture? What is the structure of your music (does it move from storm to calm, for instance, or does it build from calm to storm and back again)? Answering these questions for yourself will help you decide how to present the task as well as providing you with material to demonstrate.

This article could only highlight a few key issues from Ofsted’s report. A wider range of issues are illustrated in the best practice videos on Ofsted’s website (see tinyurl.com/ofstedmusic). One final thought: children’s progress in music requires their teachers also to progress. Ofsted found that music CPD for teachers was inadequate or non-existent in over a third of schools. NAME’s annual conference on 5th and 6th October 2012 includes a wealth of practical CPD for primary school teachers, and opens with a keynote address from Mark Philips, Ofsted’s National Advisor for Music

What if it sounds dreadful?

• Work out why it sounds dreadful - listen to find out what the children are finding difficult.
• Break down the difficult part of the music into simple sections for the children to practise. For example, clap the rhythm of a melody, sing the two notes that are going wrong, say the words.
• Try putting the simple parts back together again.
• If it still sounds dreadful, perhaps the music is too difficult and you need to try something easier first.

Finding your singing voice

Some children find it more difficult than others to move from speaking voice to singing voice, which results in them ‘growling’ with a low voice on a narrow range of pitches. This is all about learning to tilt the larynx (the cartilage in the throat that holds the vocal cords), and can be overcome with some simple exercises, e.g.

• Allow children time to make the transition from speaking to singing. Play with the voice by sirening (like a police siren) from the lowest note they can sing to the highest and back down – they don’t all have to sing the same notes. You can lead this by picturing a roller coaster, or fireworks, or a bee…anything that goes up and down!
• Secure the starting note for a song by getting the children to hum it gently (their lips should tickle) and listen carefully to each other. As they hum, get them to open their mouths so that the “hmm” turns into an “ahh”. Move straight into the song, so that they don’t chatter and un-tilt their larynxes again!