The University is Alive With The Sound Of Music

Yes it's in the title, music was the lesson taught at Reading University this week, and I also joined the School Choir.

Most of you reading this don't know me but I grew up loving music; from singing Scouting songs around a campfire, playing the piano from the age of 11, to singing at every step along my educational path. I found a passion for drama on top of all this and decide to follow a dream of becoming an actor (see previous blog posts to give a more detailed breakdown on my previous career).

Extra-curricular activities
Anyway why did I join the School Choir? Well, the music teacher is teaching the KS2 children some Christmas songs for a concert and I didn't want to miss out on both performing and assisting. This combines fun with learning and it ticks off Standard 8 in the process. The children were surprised that Mr Harte was in the music room and made a bit of fuss but hopefully the novelty will wear off next week. I am using this experience to hopefully assist with the end of school production and also add the responsibility to my teaching repertoire because it will give weight to any interviews in the future. 

Guided Reading
I taught a good lesson using only a picture to get my group to think about how the illustrator gains sympathy from its reader without the use of text. One thing I should have done was to give pen and paper to the children and asked them to write their thoughts and feelings down rather than me asking them and doing it for them.

Marking my 1st set of English papers
The Year 6 were given an English Reading SAT's paper. This I welcomed because it will enable the teachers to see how the cohort has been developing since the start of term. I can also see how my Focus Reader (a University based task) is doing since I started working with him. I wanted to gain experience of marking papers so only did the unambiguous questions which didn't require much thinking.

Year 3 observations
I have literally been all over the school these past few weeks and that is precisely what I should be doing this Autumn Term. I spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning with a class in Year 3 AND I was able to see: a guitar lesson taught by two external music teachers, a topic lesson based on the compass points, Maths lesson looking at subtracting two digit numbers and both a guided reading and English lesson focusing on letters and sending mail. 

i saw some excellent transition tactics being employed. The pace of the lessons meant that for their age, the children didn't spend too much time on their own during the lesson. I can see that for Year 3 it needs to be a gradual process to becoming more independent learning especially so soon after being in Year 2. With 2 TA's in the class as well, both knew their class tasks and all of the adults moved about the different groups to ensure the teacher spent time with as many of the class as she could. This is important because each child feels as if the teacher isn't just concentrating on the lower or higher ability groups.

Maths Test for all of Year 5/6
On Thursday another SAT's paper was sat except this time covering Year 5 as well. This is because we stream in 5 classes and this will give a chance to see not only what needs teaching but also whether some children need moving around the classes. We have had a few new students and despite a few bits on informal assessment, I feel a test will show the real ability of a student. That is just my opinion but with something like Math's it is vital each teacher knows that what they are teaching matches their students' level of learning. 

Yet again I am pleased this has happened because my Focus Math's student is in my class and I can quickly see what she needs immediate help with.

Second Guided Reading Session
Picking up from what I noted on Monday, I ensured my group had pen and paper to convey any thoughts they had by simply looking at a second image I showed them. Some of the vocab learnt in the last lesson was remembered and my Focus reader came out with an amazing metaphor saying 'the people on the top deck of the ship were huddled around like penguins trying to keep warm'. 

Plans for next week
I spoke to my mentor about how my two lessons went and how I adapted my teaching strategy. We spoke about a pending Science lesson that I am planning based on Light and how it travels in a straight line. She wants me to think how to challenge the Gifted and Talented children in my questioning.
In my Personal Learning Profile, I added that I will be focusing on Year 1 Phonics over the next two weeks and she gave advice on which classes to observe and for what I should be looking out for. As well as this I will be getting a day's worth of Phonics Training at University so it will consist of a lot of new learning.
One thing she did like a lot was that I have been updating a personal calendar on the schools Public Data drive and ensuring everyone can see what classes I am observing in, when I am teaching and what meeting I have planned. This will be beneficial across the whole school. 

In just one day I learnt how to teach a terms worth of music
It does sound extreme but on my University Centralised Training day it was spent with the lovely Jay Deeble, who has been teaching Music for many years and even assisted with the first ever National Curriculum when it was introduced in the 1980's.
To start with we looked at the Universal words for reading music, Ta and Ti. This system allows the value of each note to be clearly represented no matter its placement within the beat/measure. The folk song lyric "This Old Man, he played one, he played knick-knack on my thumb, with a knick-knack paddy whack, give my dog a bone, this old man came rolling home" would be said, "titi ta titi ta titi titi titi ti-tiri titi tiriti tiritiri ta titi titi titi ta".

In our tutor group we worked on some exercises that included clapping a rhythm or the pulse. The teacher is expected to distinguish for the children to help less able.  
We built on this by working as two big groups then three groups to make a canon (same song being sung but at different start times). It progressed into even smaller groups and finally a big challenge where everyone went solo. 
LO: To maintain a tune.
SC: I can add/find rhythm. I can clap the pulse I can work in a group, pair or solo

The tradition SO, MI RAY, DOE and La were then introduced as a way of remembering the different pitch of a song. These are familiar to me from The Sound of Music.
We were given a few songs to practice on Xylophones, Metalaphones or Glockenspiels and asked to come up with different ways of playing the song. Changes could include; the pitch, tempo, playing in octaves, two songs at same time, or even different notes, 

Teaching music in KS2 will vary from school to school and indeed cohort. Some classes will pick it up quickly whereas elsewhere only a handful would have any musical experience. By gradually increasing the difficulty of the lesson, each child should feel as if they have made progress. 

To appraise a music unit, we were given the Mnemonic  CLASP.
C- Composing: Creating a piece of music
L - Literature studies: looking at the background of music
A - Audience: Listening and giving feedback
S - Skills: Oral/Aural, Technical and Notating
P - Play: Performing

The National Curriculum literally has two parts.
1 - Performing and Composing
2 - Listening and appreciation

When analysing, students should be thinking about a variety of questions:
Concepts - What was understood and what was needed to understand?
Attitudes - What did you demonstrate and what was the attitude to the performance?
Skill - What did you do and what did/could you do better?
Knowledge - What did you know and what did you need to know?

Music can be linked right across the curriculum but it rarely is. A story or poem could be used for composition plus it could even be linked to Geography or Science. 

Summary of the week
Yet again, this week I have a lot to think about. I look forward to teaching much music and will adapt the things learnt today.
Marking my first sets of tests was tough because it made me realise even more that the future of others in my hands and I have to be thorough and fair in everything I do.