Sarah Hennessy

Overcoming the red-feeling: the development of confidence to teach music in primary school amongst student teachers

The music curriculum, along with the other arts in primary education in England, is under pressure from an increasing governmental focus on ‘core’ subjects. Recruits to the profession are particularly important to the long-term health of music in schools. As part of a longitudinal study to evaluate the efficacy of the university-based arts courses in preparing student teachers, the author looked at the factors affecting music. In so doing it emerged that feelings of confidence were a significant feature in the profile of successful students. The findings from this longitudinal study contribute to our understanding of how students perceive their development as teachers of music and the other arts in primary schools. The subjects of this study were students following a four-year Bachelor of Arts in Education BA(Ed.) course that prepared them to teach the full range of school curriculum subjects as generalists. The analysis of a series of semi-structured interviews reveals a complex interaction between prior experience and beliefs, and the quality of school experience.

Mapping Music Education Research in the UK

Over the past 25 years there has been an increasing and worldwide research interest in music education, embracing a range of disciplines and perspectives. As well as particular research foci on the nature of curricula, musical behaviour and development, new research literatures have been developed that link music education with ethnomusicology, psychology (including neuropsychobiology, cognitive and developmental psychology), history, sociology and philosophy, as well as with mainstream studies in pedagogy. This review creates a ‘map’ of these various and related literatures in order to (i) provide a summative overview of the current breadth and depth of available research knowledge for actual and potential users, and (ii) create a research development agenda that embraces indicators of possible research priorities for the immediate future. The review is also a celebration of the major UK impact on these research literatures. An introduction (Swanwick) leads into a series of linked overviews, focusing first on research concerned with individual musical development (Hallam and Lamont), then on the potential impact to musical learning of social group membership (O’Neill and Green) and schooling (Cox and Hennessy) and concluding with an ethnomusicological perspective (Farrell) and coda (Welch).

Confidence development in non-music specialist trainee primary teachers after an intensive programme

The issue of music teacher training for primary generalist teachers is shared by many countries in the world. We know from a range of studies which factors contribute to teachers’ abilities and confidence, but there are fewer studies that document the possible training approaches and interventions that might improve the outcomes. This article describes an international educational experience addressed to 23 trainee primary teachers coming from Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovenia. The Intensive Programme 1 called ‘International Summer School in Educating Music Teachers’ (ISSEMT) was offered at Padova University, Italy with the purpose of fostering confidence and competences among trainee generalist teachers for teaching music in the primary school. In planning the didactic approach of the ISSEMT, methods designed to enhance participants’ understandings of teaching creatively and teaching for creativity were adopted. The entire educational activity was evaluated by students using questionnaires and discussion. In addition, a follow-up interview was conducted with students after two years and five months, at the end of the ISSEMT. Students refer to the improvement of confidence in teaching music and the application of a creative approach. They appreciated the approach, the practical teaching ideas and the way the course closely related to their educational needs. These results are discussed in the framework of confidence development of the generalist teacher in the primary school for teaching music. The key factors that contributed to the effectiveness of the ISSEMT are also discussed.

The Conditions and Consequences of Reflective Practices in Arts Education

This chapter attempts to draw together some of the issues and themes which emerge from the individual contributions to this book. Our invitation to authors in Section 1 was to contribute their perspectives and insights into an aspect of professional reflection. In Section 2 authors were asked to describe and discuss particular applications of tools to facilitate a reflective process in a specific context, and in Section 3 more detailed explorations of the place of reflective activity and its effects in a variety of settings are presented. The context for all these perspectives is arts education and three principle sites for activity recur: school classrooms, teacher education programmes, and partnership projects involving artists, teachers and other professionals working with young people in and out of school. The experiences described and discussed do not cover all possible sites and aspects of practice, but do offer a diverse range of purposes and contexts for reflection. I have attempted to identify some key elements and features which have emerged from my reading of this collection. These seem to me to be significant in understanding what characteristics of the reflective process are, the conditions which support it and its consequences. The fundamental act of reflection, the arguments for its value and the purposes it serves are reiterated throughout these stories and descriptions. What is distinctive is the variety of contexts and applications which might resonate with the conditions and practices of readers’ own circumstances. In education and arts practices it is the specifics of context which demand constant review, reappraisal, refinement, rehearsal, redefining—all activities in which critical reflection is implicit. On every occasion when people come together to play, improvise, devise, invent, share ideas and new understandings in art making; the medium/s, the place, the timescale, the levels of ability, dispositions, expectations and ambitions of participants; and the socio-cultural affordances or constraints all have a bearing on how the experience will take shape and evolve. Every factor interacts with every other creating a unique condition to which arts practitioners must not only be especially sensitive but also be able to exploit or ameliorate in creative and appropriate ways.

CREAT-IT: Implementing Creative Strategies into Science Teaching

Recent EU recommendations and decisions about the future of educational systems, and recent research initiatives in pedagogical and educational issues, recommend that efforts should be dedicated to motivating the school community to use creative teaching and learning practices in their day-to-day activities. More specifically, creativity and innovation in the teaching of science will help achieve the EUROPE 2020 targets concerned with educational targets. This paper will present the proposed methodology to support creative strategies in science teaching through the pedagogical framework that has been developed by the CREAT-IT [19] project and integrates the arts with science teaching. This framework supports the implementation of a series of training workshops for teachers and subsequent work with their students in schools. The implementation stages will be evaluated so as to conclude with specific recommendations about practices which can be followed in the future.

‘Taiko SouthWest’: developing a ‘new’ musical tradition in English schools

This article reports on a project to establish taiko drumming groups in schools throughout the southwest of England. The project is funded by the National Foundation for Youth Music (YM) which aims to increase access to music-making activity for young people in the UK. Taiko is a relatively new phenomenon in the UK. In the southwest, Kagemusha Taiko, a professional company, has been performing and teaching for 6 years and has built a strong reputation in both. The current project is focused on the professional development of teachers in achieving the aim of establishing a permanent foundation for taiko in schools across the region. Thirteen secondary schools and two primary schools were involved, and taiko was offered as an after-school activity.

Approaches to increasing the competence and confidence of student teachers to teach music in primary schools

ABSTRACT The National Plan for Music (DfE (Department for Education). 2011. The Importance of Music: a National Plan for Music Education. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-importance-of-music-a-national-plan-for-music-education.) reflected the need for increasing the numbers of primary class teachers able to teach music and of teachers with expertise in music to become subject leaders. The plan stated that a pilot project would be funded ‘to trial new primary music ITT modules in summer 2012 to boost new teachers’ confidence and skill in teaching music’ (DfE, 2011, 21). Approaches to addressing this intransigent problem, exacerbated if not caused by policies which have led to the marginalisation of music education in the primary curriculum, have been investigated and shared for many years but this was the first opportunity (since the early 1990s) to apply and evaluate effective practices in a national context. The 21 pilot modules were selected and funded to run in 2012–2013. Changes in policies and structures meant that the planned evaluation did not take place but all providers who ran a pilot module did complete their own evaluation and many submitted extensive teaching materials. These data will form the basis for a consideration of the approaches used by the 21 different providers; what informed their module design, pedagogical approaches and choice of content. Follow-up interviews were undertaken to learn what the legacy has been for their training provision. Finally, there is a discussion of how the knowledge gained through this work can be used to support those involved in school-based training.