My Music Classroom

Curriculum design is something I have always thoroughly enjoyed, and in twenty years of teaching in four different departments, I have never tired of re-writing and tinkering with the department curriculum. In my mind, it is the core of a successful department too. Get this right, and the rest follows in terms of co-curricular engagement.

Recently at BCCS, we have re-centred our schemes around new concepts. Several years ago, our schemes were quite traditional: Blues, EDM, song writing, Minimalism, and the like. Three longer topics a year has always been my personal preference, as it allows for deeper learning, time for development of skills, and time for meaningful musical progression. Half-term projects are, for me, too tokenistic and don’t allow time to really drill down into the guts of the learning.

Something we have been thinking about a lot is the decolonisation of our curriculum. As Nate Holder has shared as part of his inspiring and important work — “diversification is not the same as decolonisation” — and there is much work to do in terms of giving students authentic and rich musical experiences that are not purely moments of musical tourism. So, as we evolve our schemes, we are now centring our curriculum around broader concepts: Music as Social Justice, Reinventing the Blues, and Creating Musical Ensemble are some of the initial headings.
Each scheme has a core musical product or assessment task, a set of theoretical concepts to embed, a list of knowledge to cover, plus key assessment strands (ensemble, performance, improvisation, composition, etc.). But the content is very fluid, and that is what we are currently exploring.

Reflecting the student community is important here too, while also accepting our teacher responsibility as the gatekeepers and enablers of some musical knowledge. It is important we, as teachers, are expert in what we do, yet equally acknowledge that we also have much to learn — and our students often come into our classrooms with musical experiences beyond our own. Music as Social Justice, for example, can cover a range of genres: reggae, ska, mento, rock, punk, and more. Dipping into Shostakovich can sit alongside Damian Marley and Dave, while lyrics can be toasted or sung, looking at effective text setting over chords or drum patterns. Reinventing the Blues starts with very traditional blues and then evolves through jazz and other genres, while spending time understanding chord construction and extensions beyond our previous centralisation of the 12-bar chord progression.

This is all very much a thinking process and a starting point as opposed to a finishing one. Covid has meant that the schemes have had to be rejigged to cover some lost threshold concepts, but it has also encouraged some creativity. This is a shift and a beginning I am excited about. Not sure it’s perfect, but rethinking and exploring is part of the fun.

LG