Music-ITE

The launch of a Learning Outside the Classroom Manifesto (DCSF: November 2006) setting out the vision “to enable every young person to experience the world beyond the classroom as an essential part of their learning and personal development” may have seemed one of the lesser priorities for music teachers, not least because many would argue that music is one curriculum area where teachers are already routinely dividing their energies between the classroom context and a whole host of enhancement activities. However, it is this common division between curricular and extra-curricular music which in many schools reinforces a distinction between adequate ‘classroom’ music for all and possibly more interesting ‘real’ music for the select few. In many cases, the links between the two are pretty much non-existent and they tend to operate as two quite distinct areas of the participants’ music education.

A further issue is young people’s indifference to school music in the face of their passion for music in their lives in general. This has been well-documented in recent years and a desire to rectify this with more joined-up thinking across the different sectors of music education for the benefit of young people was identified in the Music Manifesto Report No.2:

How we set about preparing student teachers for this collaborative vision of music education is an interesting challenge, not least because it cuts to the heart of the problem of ‘school music’. Are we merely preparing teachers to successfully deliver a programme of ‘classroom music’, or trying to develop inspiring educators who can use their musicianship and creativity to lead music-making across a range of learning contexts?

Further impetus in the direction of collaboration was one of the outcomes of the Roberts Report Nurturing Creativity in Young People (DCMS / DfES - July 2006) which included a key proposal to “prepare new entrants to the education workforce for the roles involved in developing partnerships with creative organisations”. The government’s subsequent response (November 2006) that “…we will explore the feasibility of a national placement programme for student teachers in creative, non-school settings” is encouraging but, as yet, has still to come to fruition.

In the meantime, it is worth exploring how we might expose student teachers in music during their training to contexts other than the formal school setting and this article looks at one model which has been developed since 2005 in a unique collaboration between the University of Greenwich and Trinity College of Music.

“If all you see is classroom music in the bog standard school, that’s all you do!”

This is how one of our PGCE students summed up when asked to give an opinion about how recent experience of placements in alternative settings was informing her current practice in school. Despite the somewhat direct expression, she clearly felt that her classroom practice was considerably enhanced by what she had gained from the wider involvement in music education.

The University of Greenwich / Trinity College of Music PGCE was conceived from the outset as a course for ‘Musicians in Education’. The vision was to prepare confident music leaders for the widest possible range of contexts where young people make music. For example, in addition to teaching in schools, on completing the course trainees might find themselves involved in

• large group / small group /one-to-one instrumental teaching e.g. in schools, private practice, music services
• leading / directing small / large ensembles in educational contexts e.g. as part of LA music service provision
• the animateur in education role e.g. in projects linked to the school curriculum
• composer / musician in residence work e.g. in schools, music centres
• professional companies’ outreach programmes
• 'special' provision e.g. specialists schools, special needs contexts
• informal settings e.g. running community music workshops
• collaborative arts projects in all of the above contexts

With Wider Opportunities whole-class instrumental teaching taking off and musicians from a variety of backgrounds recognising the benefits of gaining QTS, a course that made an effort to encompass the totality of music education seemed long overdue.

The basic components of the Greenwich course are much the same as any other one year full time PGCE i.e. taught subject and professional studies sessions at university and two contrasting school placements. As with other institutions, a significant part of the university (and Trinity College of Music) teaching takes place at the beginning of the programme and then again in a couple of weeks between placements (In our case, this is at the beginning of term 2 since school placement A runs from October to Christmas and placement B from mid January to June). The ‘additional’ experience – the placements in alternative contexts and the related ‘self directed project’ (where students build on this experience by devising and delivering their own creative project as visiting artists in partnership schools), are scheduled to take place alongside school placement B during term 2.

The current offer is that students spend

• the equivalent to one day per week during term 2 working in alternative context placements, and
• 5 days at the end of the term working collaboratively to devise and deliver their self-directed project.

Our aim is to give each student two contrasting experiences although, in a small number of cases, in-depth, sustained involvement for the whole term is seen as beneficial for both student and learners. To some extent, we aim to personalise placements to trainees’ strengths and interests. For example, talented instrumentalists might be given the opportunity to work with professional orchestras’ outreach programmes, and students who are keen to develop knowledge of music technology are directed towards projects with a strong ICT focus.

Interestingly, a number of students express a desire to deepen their understanding of Special Educational Needs through their alternative context placements and we have been fortunate in developing some excellent collaborations with visiting animateurs and subject leaders in special schools.

Students often find themselves in schools during their alternative placements, working alongside professional musicians in enrichment projects or on projects outside the formal curriculum. This has the additional benefit of allowing them to gain an insight into music departments other than their main placement school and, in at least one case, informal conversations with the Head of Department on such an occasion led to a job for the following year!

The experience and contacts of Trinity College of Music together with our location in London are invaluable in setting up the wide range of placements. To give some indication of scope, the following are some of the alternative placements students have been involved with over the past two years:

• Get Your Act Together (a school-based informal rock project in Tower Hamlets)
• ‘Sound Collective’ schools creative project - Stravinsky’s Soldiers Tale 
• SEN Project – Charlton School
• National Maritime Museum – music-in-residence
• Royal London Hospital - Arts & Health Project
• Raising the Roof Schools Tour (Trinity College of Music project for the London Boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham)
• Mbawula (African music & jazz fusion community project)
• Junior Trinity (Saturday junior conservatoire at Trinity College of Music)
• LPO Playerlink
• LPO Concertlink
• LSO creative project linked to music of James MacMillan
• Morpeth School Rock Project
• Drake Music Project (SEN project in a special school)
• Musician in Residence - Sedgehill School(Performing Arts College)
• Musician in Residence - Forest Hill School (Performing Arts College)
• Greenwich Music Service Rock & Pop Rehearsal Scheme (mentoring and coaching on weekend informal learning project)
• Greenwich Music-Makers 0rchestra (collaborative composing and performing project after school and during school holidays)
• Primary School Music & Dance Project for KS2 pupils
• Pro Corda Plus – residential performing arts course for SEN pupils

1. Timetabling

The variety of opportunities available and the unique characteristics of each placement are both strengths and potential problems. From an organisational point of view, the challenge is to balance the rigidity of a student’s main placement timetable with the flexibility required for their work in alternative contexts. At best, it is possible to set aside the same day each week throughout the term for these placements, as the example of Ben’s term 2 timetable below shows (click the image to enlarge)
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Ben’s two alternative placements, the informal rock project at a Tower Hamlets school and his work on a creative project alongside the musician-in-residence at the National Maritime Museum, were both scheduled on Tuesday. The fact that the latter did not begin until after half term and, therefore, he was only working in the afternoon for the first four weeks is not a major concern. Once the two projects were running together (from week 7) he was committed to substantial ‘contact time’ and, in this light, the previous four ‘free’ mornings were barely adequate for planning and preparation!

By contrast, Anna’s schedule for the term (click the image below to enlarge) is more disjointed. Her placement at the Royal London Hospital fitted neatly into consecutive Thursdays before half term, but her involvement with the LPO Playerlink programme, (where she worked alongside a small group of orchestral musicians visiting schools), had a scattering of different days of the week for the next five weeks.

As the main placement (host) school mentor, what would be your reaction to this? Would you be inclined to see her absence on different days as detrimental to what you regard as her ‘more important’ classroom work?
There certainly is potential for tension with school mentors here but the key is clearly to anticipate the problem. In our experience, so long as the placement school is aware that the student will not be in school on a particular day, the regular teacher is happy temporarily to take back their classes. Our current agreed practice with mentors in school is to have personalised timetables for the term for each student (as above) available from the start of week 3. So far, it is working!

2. Making it count

Less emphasis on assessment, voluntary attendance, less formal relationships with pupils are among the attractions of most alternative placements and yet can quickly suggest to students that this is merely enrichment to the more serious business of the school placement. In the initial stages, when the challenges of the classroom are starting to get you down, the possibility of spending a day away doing something different and often quite exciting can also seem quite attractive. It is important therefore to constantly promote experience in alternative context placements as an integral part of the course. There are a number of QTS standards which are particularly appropriate to this component, notably those linked to cooperation and collaborative working (Q5, Q6, Q32), personalisation (Q10, Q19) and out-of-school learning (Q24, Q30). It has been worth establishing the expectation that relevant evidence is available from all contexts.
By specifying a focus on the alternative experience for the weekly reflective writing at certain times has also helped to raise its academic profile although, so far, it has not featured discretely as a written assignment.

3. Quality Assurance

Unlike the school context, where teachers are generally familiar with assessment against the QTS standards and the general mentoring process, in alternative placements students are working alongside musicians who are less likely to be qualified teachers and who have little if any knowledge of ITE. At maximum they are likely to be working with a student for just 10 days therefore, even if it were desirable, it is totally impractical to expect any mentor training.
In the circumstances, we commit to making a tutor visit to each student once during their alternative placements and ask their supervisor / mentor to complete a short written report linked to the broad headings of the QTS standards at the end of the placement.

A couple of extracts from students’ reflective writing exemplify how they start to make sense of their different experiences. Isabella (Extract 1) worked in a high-achieving girls’ school for her second school placement and split her time in alternative placements between a special school and outreach with the LPO. Here she contrasts the seemingly different expectations at her main placement school with those at the special school but ultimately concludes that, in both settings (and for music education in general) “ the most important factor is to try to provide the conditions where pupils can explore their creativity and musicality”.

Extract 1 (Isabella)

In Extract 2, Sarah considers whether some of the creative composition teaching styles she has experienced on her alternative context placement - a Pro Corda Plus residential course for SEN pupils, could usefully be adapted to the mainstream classroom to improve group work composing.

Extract 2 (Sarah)

When asked to identify the most positive aspects of their alternative context experience to their development in general as music educators students responses tend to fall under three broad headings.

1. The benefit of a wider perspective and the breadth of experience

2. The opportunity to experiment / take risks

3. The potential for collaboration

A related question is how, and to what extent, students feel their experience in alternative contexts is specifically impacting on their classroom practice. Again, the following are typical responses. They clearly suggest that students believe they are becoming more effective teachers by synthesising ideas, adapting pedagogies and generally making musical sense of their different experiences.

A number of students noted that their mentor in their placement school showed interest and was supportive of their work in alternative contexts (e.g. ‘he could see the advantages of experiencing music education in a different context’
and ‘….. agreed I was benefiting from the alternative placements’). However, particularly in the early stages, some students were also reporting that their school mentor was less enthusiastic about this aspect of the course. Did these mentors feel the students were getting ‘an easy ride’? Did they fear that these days ‘out’ of school would make it impossible for them to make a valid judgement of whether s/he was meeting the standards in the classroom? Was it simply a matter of being unwilling to recognise that any valid musical learning could happen beyond their classroom? i.e. the basic problem in the first place!

The importance of sharing what we are trying to do with school mentors cannot be underestimated. They need to be convinced of the value of the whole package and not just their own component. At best, an interest in the student’s alternative context experience involves a healthy exchange of ideas and makes a useful contribution to the mentor’s own professional development. Consider the difference between the first student comment below and what follows:

Giving students the opportunity to work in alternative placements in music education alongside their main school placements places the focus on the musicianship of music teachers, wherever they may work. The experience gives students a more holistic and arguably more inclusive view of music education. In job interviews they are able to draw on a broad number of experiences and discuss the range of contexts where young people are making music. Not surprisingly, a number of Greenwich students have taken work in non-formal contexts such as LA music services with a specific remit to make links with classroom practice.