Tag: aqa
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Welcome to Manor Music City – Updated Nov 2022
Manor has had a long tradition of high quality music education, but following a period of reflection during Covid-times when practical music making has not been possible in schools, it has created space to redesign how our subject works in the life of the school. This new model places musical experience and understanding at the…
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Celebrating 10 years of progress to understand how to help all young people to make confident progress in music.
To mark this 10th Anniversary of developments, I’ve decided to share the lockdown work of one of my year 10 students. I’m so grateful to the family for giving permission for the work to be shared. This is an amazing example of the musical learning and creation that’s been possible during the 8 weeks of…
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A solution to help ‘students who are not actively playing or writing music’ to find confidence in the understanding of music theory and language
This amount of learning is vast for an 11-12 year old student. That every single individual learner is engaged and wanting to do more, is awesome. The learning potential of this approach with the addition of Kahoot is amazing!
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My Reflections on the BBC Digital Detox week at Manor CE Academy, York 27-31 January 2020
At the end of 2019, I was approached by BBC Inside Out to take part in a challenge, which would be filmed and shown on BBC1. They were interested in seeing “how much smart screen technology has got into our lives.”
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Inspiring a love of learning (rather than a fear of exams)
There will always be challenges in this profession, but perhaps we’re getting the problems and solutions the wrong way round. Could we approach exam preparation differently? Here’s a real-world solution with a fantastic outcome!
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iPad GCSE Music Demo (now with Voiceover)
This term my Y9 GCSE Music students (on both music pathways) have the challenge of producing a complete song using an iPad, beginning only with a lead sheet. They have 5 weeks in total to complete the project. This is an example of a possible Production Via Technology Performance – an option available to students…
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A Real-World Solution To Create Impact In Music Progression
This is specifically written for school leaders, for heads of music and for the parents of my GCSE music students. We’ll shortly be going into Year 9 mocks. Historically in a 3-year KS4, it has always felt too early to be awarding an attainment grade as the GCSE Music qualification requires much applied development of…
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Inventiveness & Creativity
Having launched the new iPad Music competition last Sunday, I’ve spent the week discussing the concepts of inventiveness and creativity with my students. I chose these two words as they explain a meaning of “exceptionally creative”, which is given in the top-band on the mark scheme for AQA GCSE Music Composition. A student who is…
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Harmony – The Hot Chocolate for Your Marshmallows
Following on from ‘Detox Melody’, the natural next move was to ‘Detox Harmony’. Harmony is the most complex musical element for our students to understand. Mostly problems occur when they don’t consider the impact of an additional part, which naturally they don’t. When beginning to compose, they layer sounds or melodies together and are transfixed…
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Year 8 “Production” Launched
This first week of 2019 has seen the launch of our exciting new “Production” unit in KS3 music at Manor. The unit gives students the opportunity to explore the type of work they might do on our new GCSE Music Production Via Technology Pathway. It could also be the first step of development towards a…
Music Teacher Solutions 