My Music Classroom

Reflections from my secondary music classroom

  • A reflection on the Model Music Curriculum

    A reflection on the Model Music Curriculum

    I write this fully aware that there is probably enough noise already around the new Model Music Curriculum. In addition I have already seen a number of very well written and insightful blog posts from a range of phases and contexts. I wanted to make a small contribution beyond my Twitter replies and…

  • Being an anti-racist: Intention has to equal impact

    Being an anti-racist: Intention has to equal impact

    Since posting a black square on my Instagram feed last week I have reflected a lot on my responsibility and previous failures as a privileged white female to call out racism and truly acknowledge the existence of white supremacy. This post isn’t about virtual signalling or tokenism, to be honest the…

  • The best advice I received as a music teacher

    The best advice I received as a music teacher

    This is a post I submitted as part of #ReLearnMusicTeaching on Twitter. This has been a super collaborative blogging effort I have occasionally contributed to during lockdown. It is a sequence of posts that discuss and unpack each of the tasks in ‘Learning To Teach in the Secondary School’. I have…

  • Planning During a Pandemic: Part Two

    Planning During a Pandemic: Part Two

    The last time I posted I was hugely overwhelmed by the recent lockdown and scrabbling about trying to find a personal and profession pattern to live by. As Twitter buzzes with opinions on lifting restrictions, I have been thinking about how things have progressed since then so here are a few…

  • Planning during a Pandemic

    Planning during a Pandemic

    Writing a blog post is probably the last thing I ‘should’ be doing right now. In the midst of being locked down at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic I have been juggling setting work, trying to support students remotely, get to grips with new resources and apps. All around…

  • Key Stage 3 Music Curriculum Planning

    Key Stage 3 Music Curriculum Planning

    This year, like many schools we have been part of a real focus on curriculum planning within our departments. Planning a curriculum has always been something I have enjoyed, thinking about the students I teach and crafting a curriculum to inspire them and progress their musicianship. There are so many…

  • My Music Classroom 2020

    My Music Classroom 2020

    It is now the end of February 2020 and I am very aware that it has been a long time since I last blogged here. Like many I have been meaning to so many times, but taking the first step back into it has been harder than I thought. Time…

  • A reflection on my summer resolutions 2014

    A reflection on my summer resolutions 2014

    This time last year I wrote my first ever blog post and came up with some resolutions for the new academic year as inspired by #mufuchat. You can read it here. 1. To keep singing at the heart of my classroom I definitely kept putting singing first this year, although…

  • Life without tables – one year on

    Life without tables – one year on

    A tweet came up in my Timehop today that read ‘I’m bored and ready for a change in my classroom layout, but am I brave enough to ditch the tables?’. Turns out I was and my first class in September arrived to a very large space with all the instruments…

  • #summer10

    #summer10

    I have seen a few other educators doing their #summer10 plans for the holidays so thought I’d share my own to kick start the break. Rest – First on my agenda is making some time to rest. After and exhausting summer term that seemed to be relentlessly busy I am looking forward…