Submission Summary
Background and Context
(Please refer to Informal Learning 1 PDF for further information on Musical Futures)
The model was piloted by 17 schools in Hertfordshire including three Special Educational Needs schools (as well as four schools in London in a pre-pilot study funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation). It has now been taken on and developed by teachers across the country.
The model was developed as an attempt to tackle issues surrounding motivation, attitude, enjoyment and skill acquisition for Key Stage 3 (particularly Year 9) pupils in their music lessons in school. It aims to bridge the gap between the way pupils enjoy and engage with music outside school (through listening to music, attending concerts, gigs, participating in bands, ensembles, making use of music and/or online technologies) and their experiences of music within school, which are sometimes regarded as negative. It also was exploring why there is a generally poor response to continuation of music at Key Stage 4, and a relatively low take-up of instrumental and vocal tuition.
Informal Learning in the Music Classroom
At the core of the informal learning model are the following five principles (as defined by Green), which form the basis of this approach:
- Pupils work with music that they choose for themselves, often music that they like, enjoy and identify with;
- Pupils primarily work aurally, by listening and copying;
- Pupils work alongside friends, in groups that they choose for themselves;
- Skills and knowledge tend to be assimilated haphazardly, starting with whole, real-world pieces of music;
- There is an integration of listening, performing, improvising and composing throughout the learning process, with an emphasis on personal creativity.
Teachers in this environment adopt a different role, which is critical to the success of this approach in the classroom. After establishing ground rules concerning behaviour, respect for each other and for instruments, the teacher sets the task going, and then enters into a process of observing their pupils, analysing and diagnosing their needs, and then offering help, support, advice, guidance and musical modelling based on the goals that pupils set for themselves.
A Programme of Informal Learning
| Stage 1: Into the Deep End – introducing informal learning into the classroom | Pupils are asked to bring their own music into the classroom, to get into friendship groups, and to attempt to copy a chosen song in whatever way they wish, using instruments of their choice. |
| Stage 2: Modelling aural learning with popular music | Pupils direct their own learning in friendship groups, as before, but this time all working on the same song with riffs broken down and provided for them. |
| Stage 3: The deep end revisited | An optional stage whereby a repetition of Stage 1 can take place. |
| Stage 4: Informal composing | Pupils are invited to compose informally, without any parameters being set by the teacher. |
| Stage 5: Modelling composing | A demonstration of how to write songs/create music is given by visiting musicians or by an existing student band from within the school. The visiting musicians/students then spend time helping pupils shape their own compositions. |
| Stage 6: Into the deep end with other music. | Pupils are given a CD containing pieces of classical music and are asked to listen to and copy the music, making their own versions of it if they so choose. The music has at some point appeared on television advertisements, therefore may be familiar to pupils. |
| Stage 7: Modelling aural learning with classical music. | Pupils are asked to listen to, and re-create classical music which has been broken down in more detail, as in Stage 2. |
Teachers have developed the ideas of learning music informally with a wide range of musics, particularly adapting Stages 6 and 7, to include all types of music for example folk, jazz, Latin American, opera and bhangra.
Results from the Pilot Phase 
- Increased levels of motivation among pupils, with pupils staying on task in lessons for the majority of the time;
- Improved attitude towards music and music lessons, with pupils sometimes extending their work beyond the lesson – staying behind in break, lunchtime, after school, talking about their work in other lessons etc;
- Development of skills – particularly listening skills, as listening is integrated into this approach, but also instrumental and vocal skills;
- Pupils emerging as having musical skills that teachers were previously unaware of;
- Pupils emerging as being natural leaders, not always the students teachers would expect;
- Improvement in take-up of music at Key Stage 4;
- Increased numbers of pupils wishing to take instrumental and vocal tuition, or to become involved in extra-curricular activity;
- Teachers changing aspects of their practice to incorporate informal learning in other music lessons, from Year 7 to Year 13.
See the video above, a short film about Stage 1 of the informal learning process, and the impact on students and teachers.
Introducing Informal Learning to Trainee Teachers
Summary of introducing informal learning to trainee teachers (2 hour session in total):
- Explanation of the task (5 minutes);
- Trainees work on the practical activity, and finish by performing their work (1 hour);
- Contextualise the task by talking about the model of informal pedagogies developed through Musical Futures, drawing on some of the broader aims and objectives of the Musical Futures initiative (10 mins);
- Engage in a discussion session about informal learning pedagogies, and their place in the music classroom (45 mins).
Preparation
Compile a set of identical CDs of four recent pieces of music, found in the UK charts (which can be downloaded, for example from www.apple.com/itunes). For copyright reasons this cannot be reproduced here, but music used for these sessions in the past has included:
| Artist/Band | Song title | Genre |
| Artic Monkeys | When the Sun Goes Down | Indie |
| Artful Dodger | Movin’ Too Fast | Garage |
| Black Eyed Peas | Let’s Get it Started | Hip hop/pop |
| The Gorillaz | Feel Good Inc | Alternative/indie |
| Nas | I Can | Hip hop |
| James Blunt | You’re Beautiful | Pop |
Alternatively, prior to the lesson ask trainees to bring in one piece of music that they like and are familiar with. (NB: this more closely reflects what happens in the classroom, however in the classroom pupils have 6 weeks to go through this process, and as this session only allows 1 hour for practical work it can be more effective to reduce the number of choices the trainees have to work through by providing them all with the same pieces of music).
If necessary, ask trainees to bring an instrument to the session (see below).
Resources
The following needs to be available for this session:
- Each group of trainees needs a space to work (i.e. practice room, other classroom, lecture theatre, studio, even a corridor);
- A CD player for each small group of trainees;
- A selection of instruments ensuring each trainee has something to work on. Ideally each group would have access to:
- Some sort of percussion (ideally a drum kit, if not djembes, congos, hand percussion etc would be suitable);
- Electric or acoustic guitar;
- Bass guitar;
- Electronic keyboard or piano;
- Microphone;
- Selection of other instruments – e.g. tuned percussion, stringed instruments, woodwind instruments etc.
(Alternatively, trainees can be asked to bring their own instruments in for this session. Ensure there are some ‘back-up’ instruments available though, especially percussion and electronic keyboards).
Setting the task (5 mins)
- Explain to trainees that they are going to be informal learners during the session. They are going to learn music in a self-directed, informal way, that mirrors the way that popular musicians learn in the informal realm (refer to Lucy Green’s book ‘How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education). This typically involves the following:
- Learning music that the learner likes, is familiar with, identifies with and enjoys;
- Learning alongside friends, often without adult supervision/intervention;
- Usually starts with listening to and copying recordings of familiar music, and then broadening from there;
- Learning processes are often haphazard – learning is pitched personally to suit the needs of the learner, and doesn’t necessarily follow a progression from simple to complex;
- Integrates listening, composing, improvising and performing, and has an emphasis on personal creativity.
- Ask students to group themselves into friendship groups (or if they are not familiar with each other direct them into small groups), depending on the number of spaces available. An ideal group size is 5, and we recommend no more than 8 in a group.
- Ask students to listen to all of the songs on the CD (or that they have brought to the session), to choose one, and to put together their own version of the piece of music based on what instruments are available. Whether they do a direct replication of their chosen piece, or whether they improvise and elaborate on the piece, is up to them. Set them this task with no more than an hour to complete it in. Explain that at the end of the session they will each perform their songs to each other, and if possible record the performances as well.
- Explain to students that they are going to be learning independently, and that you will be circulating and observing them, but that they can ask for help if it is needed. Explain that you will be adopting the role of the teacher in the Informal Learning in the Classroom Model, which would involve the teacher setting the task going, but then standing back, observing, diagnosing students’ needs, and offering help, guidance, support and advice based on musical modelling, rather than by directing or instructing.
- Commencement of task, give students a ten-minute warning to their performance time, and at the end of the session get each group to listen to each others’ music. We recommend the audience going to each space to listen to groups perform, rather than all regrouping in one main space, as this can take up time moving instruments etc.
Note for observers
While the trainees are working, spend time observing them and making notes on the learning processes that they are going through. Typically students won’t need any help in this task, however they sometimes may require technical support on the instruments therefore having a technician available can be useful.
Discussion session
- Start by contextualising the work the trainees have done by drawing on the notes above about the informal learning model, and broader aspects of Musical Futures and what it is trying to achieve (Refer to Informal Learning 1 PDF).
- To stimulate discussion feed back to the trainees your observations on how they were learning/working. If possible, build in reflections on how this may be similar/different to how Key Stage 3 students may respond to the task.
To help with this, the following is based on observations made at previous sessions with trainees/other adults doing this task, and may correlate with some observations made by you:
| Typical Year 9 student response to task | Typical adult response to task |
| When first listening through to music pupils tend to have a very natural response, which can involve singing, dancing, talking, shouting. | Adults often listen through to the music in a careful, considered way, without singing, dancing, shouting, talking over the music etc. |
| Pupils often go to instruments straight away and start playing any notes they can. | Adults often discuss their instrument selection, and approach instruments in a much more considered way. |
| Pupils tend to choose a piece of music based on what they as a group collectively like the best, without initially taking their abilities into account. | Adults tend to choose a piece of music based on what they as a group collectively feel they can ‘do’ the best, usually taking everybody’s abilities into account. |
| Pupils tend to initially see themselves as equal musically, until somebody proves themselves otherwise. | Adults tend to discuss what each individual in the group can ‘do’ or ‘play’, and what they feel most comfortable doing. |
| Pupils tend to help each other work out their parts, sometimes by learning together, sometimes by showing and helping each other. | Adults do the same. |
| Some pupils remain in their comfort zones, on instruments they are familiar with, others will take themselves completely out of their comfort zones and will feel confident to do this depending on the group they are working with. | Adults are the same. |
| Pupils tend to enter into a process of playing instruments all at once, with the CD playing constantly in the background. This stage can be the point where teachers feel nervous that pupils aren’t going to achieve, and ‘pull a piece together’ during the time available.
Sometimes a teacher needs to intervene if this process continues for a long time. |
Adults often do the same, and this can be a point where the observer feels there is little chance of them completing the task in the timeframe available.
The observer rarely will need to intervene as adults generally only stay in this process for a short time. |
| Pupils often need help picking out notes, riffs, rhythms, chords by ear. | Adults rarely need help picking out the music by ear, although some feel out of their comfort zones with doing this as are used to playing from notation. |
| Pupils tend to discuss the music using their own vocabulary and sometimes invented terminology, and teachers can intervene to explain that what they are playing is a riff, harmony etc. | Adults tend to discuss the music using musical vocabulary and terminology. |
| Pupils tend to loop musical ideas, and often need a teacher’s help to move on and consider structuring their performance. | While there is usually a point where adults loop musical ideas, they usually move quite quickly on to thinking about how to structure a piece. |
| Usually, one pupil or a small collective of pupils within the group will emerge as a leader(s), and will start to organise the group – either musically or by encouraging the group to get on with the task – especially with the pressure of a performance looming. | Adults do the same. |
| Pupils usually perform with the CD. | Adults usually perform without the CD. |
| Pupils usually stay on task for the majority of the time. | Adults usually do the same (although some like to talk more than others!). |
| Different groups of pupils respond in different ways – typically students will try and copy either some or all of the track, although others improvise and are very creative in terms of their outcomes. | Adults rarely do a direct copy of the music, and tend to adapt the music into a version that they feel comfortable with. |
| Pupils are usually very supportive of other groups when performing. | Adults do the same. |
- Encourage students to feedback their personal reflections on the task: Did they enjoy it? Were they challenged by it? Did they feel awkward or uncomfortable at any point? Did they learn anything about the abilities/personalities of their peers? How creative were they able to be?
- Informal Learning 2 PDF is a list of Frequently Asked Questions which aims to cover the majority of topics likely to be raised in a discussion session. Some key areas for discussion surrounding informal pedagogies might include:
- Implications for assessment (refer to Informal Learning 2 PDF);
- What happens with inspection (refer to Informal Learning 2 PDF);
- Fitting in with the Key Stage 3 National Strategy and the new National Curriculum (refer to Informal Learning 2 PDF; Informal Learning 3 PDF; Informal Learning 4 PDF);
- Implications for building up skills in Year 8 (particularly refer to the Nottingham Whole Curriculum Approach);
- Implications of engaged motivation for extra-curricular learning and extended services (particularly refer to the Leeds extra-curricular learning projects);
- Ways in which musicians might be brought into the classroom to support the learning;
- Ways in which student voice is used as an integral part of this activity, and how student voice/consultation/co-construction can be used in a broader context (i.e. refer to the Whole Curriculum Approach in terms of how Nottingham built a curriculum around student interests, and Leeds built an extra-curricular offer directly around the needs of the students);
- Skills teachers might need for working in these sorts of environments.
Some key things to remember about informal learning / Musical Futures
- It isn’t statutory – MF as a whole was designed to be adopted / adapted into teachers’ existing practice.
- It is primarily about a mindset shift, rather than a scheme of work. Teachers taking this on above everything else need to be prepared to re-assess their music teaching to become more pupil led. How this is adapted into individual school situations then depends on the needs of the students, rather than on basing it exactly on the models developed by the pathfinders.
- MF / informal learning isn’t about bringing rock, urban, pop etc music into the classroom. This is often used as a starting point, but the genre in many MF projects is irrelevant – it is the shift in teaching and learning to the less formal that seems to have the impact with students.
MF doesn’t necessarily rely on having excellent resources available. This can help, but at a basic level a school could adapt the Informal Learning model without any additional funding.
Follow Up
Challenges for ITE
- How can this session be run as ‘informally’ as possible? (I.e. so that there isn’t a conflict between ‘teaching’ informal learning in a formal manner)
- Is this a stand-alone session on informal learning, or can informal learning practices be built into other sessions with trainees?
- How can trainees wishing to take these approaches into the schools they are working in best be supported?
- How would you assess and monitor trainees if they take these approaches into the schools they are working in?
