Queen’s I Want to Break Free, Think by Aretha Franklin and Rag ’n’ Bone Man’s Human are to join favourites by Mozart and Holst after being selected to help reinvigorate school music lessons across the UK.

The tracks are amongst 200 featured in a landmark new classroom tool developed by the Royal Schools of Music examination board, ABRSM, to breathe new life into music lessons for 5 to 14-year-olds, by connecting with them through music they already know and love. The free online resource, www.classroom200.org, will include pop, folk, rap, jazz, TV and film themes and world music as well as classical. It was designed by a panel of teachers to give other teachers with an interest in music quality, ready-made lesson content which can complement curriculums across the UK and combine technical rigour with music familiar to a far wider range of children.

ABRSM Chief Executive Officer Chris Cobb said: “We know from our own evidence that an incredible 86% of children are actively making music today, and that’s fantastic.

“However, we also know that many teachers lack the confidence, budgets and time to properly support or inspire children to keep learning music – and that just a third of 14-year-olds are involved in classroom music lessons today. There is also a marked decline in children playing instruments as they get older.

“Classroom 200 builds on our unrivalled legacy of working with classical music to help address these issues. It gives teachers free, ready-made lesson plans and content and is designed to inspire pupils by connecting key learning and other musical genres to the kind of stuff that they already listen to.”

ABRSM, the UK’s largest music education charity, is confident the new resource will be popular with schools after more than 10,000 teachers signed up for Classical 100 – a similar resource which was launched by ABRSM in 2015 and featured classical music and a range of classroom activities (without lesson plans).

ABRSM has worked with a range of partner education organisations and teachers to develop its successor and hopes it will appeal to home schoolers as well as non-specialist music teachers.

The website gives teachers access to the 100 classical pieces from Classical 100 and a further 100 pieces including Queen’s I Want to Break Free, Aretha Franklin’s Think, themes from Dr Who, Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars, two Welsh language folk songs, Inkanyezi Nezazi by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Oasis’ Wonderwall, Rag n’ Bone Man’s Human and Paranoid Android by Radiohead, Ma Rainey’s Runaway Blues. They sit alongside a rich and varied selection of classical favourites including Holst’s The Planets, Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Mozart’s Symphony No 40, Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo and I Got Rhythm by Gershwin.

Lesson plans have been developed for all 200 pieces of music.

Today sees the publication of an updated version of the school governors guide to Music Education, ‘Music: a guide for governing boards’ by Arts Council England (ACE) in partnership with the National Governors Association (NGA) and Music Mark.  One of a set of four guides, with a further one due to be published later in the year, this document provides valuable information for governors of schools across England about the importance, benefits, and value of music education within and beyond a schools’ curriculum.

As a subject association for music education, Music Mark was asked to help write the original guide published in 2016, and was delighted to be invited to work with ACE and the NGA on this updated version.  The guide aims to help governing boards to look at how music can support all pupils from all backgrounds to experience a broad and balanced curriculum and the updates reflect a renewed focus on the subject by both the DfE and Ofsted.

There has been significant discussion about the music curriculum over the past few months following the Department for Education’s publication of a Model Music Curriculum (MMC) in March.  Whilst the MMC is non-statutory and it will be up to individual schools to decide whether they use all or elements of the model provided, the Schools Minister makes a clear statement within the MMC that music is ‘a vital part of a broad and ambitious curriculum’. It is hoped this may encourage governors to consider how they are supporting their school leaders and classroom teachers to provide every pupil in their school with a high-quality music curriculum.

In addition to referencing the DfE’s MMC, links have been made within the guide to the new Ofsted Inspection Framework which was being rolled out prior to the pandemic. This will resume in the new academic year, and aims to look at a school’s intent, implementation, and impact in a subject.  To support music educators to consider this, Music Mark hosted a webinar with the Ofsted HMI for Music,  Mark Phillips, in January 2021. In his talk, ‘Why just ‘doing’ music isn’t enough’, he challenged teachers to consider how they will support progression by building on previous learning, rather than simply doing ‘more’.  Members of Music Mark can watch a recording of this webinar here.

Music Mark’s CEO, Bridget Whyte, worked closely with Sharon Bray, Head of Service at Leicester-Shire Schools Music Service, on revising the text within the guide, so that as well as providing governors with information about the benefits of music education and highlighting the characteristics of high-quality provision, there are also ideas for how to monitor progress, outcomes and impact.

However, Music should not just be seen by governors as a curriculum subject alone, and therefore the guide also helps emphasise why schools should look at the wider musical learning on offer and how to connect with other local music education providers through becoming part of the local Music Education Hub.  It is hoped that there will be a better understanding across the country of how these hub partnerships can add significant value to the music offer within a school, including helping pupils and teachers to connect with the wider local community.

Commenting on the publication, Bridget Whyte said:

Music Mark believes that all children and young people should receive excellent musical learning in and out of school which inspires and enriches their lives.  State school governors have a responsibility to oversee the education provided within their school and we very much hope that this revised guidance will support them to understand the value and importance of music both as a subject and as a tool to support creativity, mental health, and wellbeing.   

As well as the guide to Music, updated versions of the guides for Arts, culture & creativity; Art, craft & design; and Dance have also been published today.

All of the guides can be downloaded from the Arts Council England website.

RSL have launched video examinations and sent us the following statement with further information:

Here at RSL Awards, we are highly conscious of the impact that Covid-19 is having on musicians, teachers, students and business. We want to do everything we can to help maintain consistent provisions so that everyone can stay engaged, active and working towards an achievable end goal. 

We are really excited to announce that RSL Awards are now able to offer video exams so that music students studying the Rockschool syllabus can take an exam this side of the summer holidays, regardless of current social distancing measures.

Video exams allows students to have the flexibility to take their exam from a place of their convenience, entailing less travel, no waiting time, and contributing to a more environmentally friendly world. We don’t want any extenuating circumstances to stop people from achieving their goals to develop as a musician, whether that’s the COVID-19 pandemic, underlying stress or anxiety issues or location based travel barriers.

Candidates have the option of two types of recorded exam:

• Performance Certificate (Debut – Grade 8): Candidates must record and upload five performance pieces (up to three can be free choice pieces)
• Graded Certificate (Debut – Grade 5): Candidates must record and upload three performance pieces (up to two free choice pieces) and ALL of the technical exercises from Groups A – D in the Rockschool Gradebook

Both of these can be taken at a time and place that suits the candidate simply by submitting a continuous, unedited video recording of all the appropriate prepared elements in a similar way to a standard face-to-face exam. The same exam criteria will be applied but candidates will not be assessed on the Unseen Tests. 

Our examiners will then be able to view the candidate’s exam and provide an accurate assessment of their achievements, providing feedback and their final mark using our standard RSL processes.

Please visit our dedicated Video Exam online resource for more information about the intricacies of each exam available, how to submit a video exam, video framing and audio capture guidance, and further supporting videos to help record an exam in the highest quality possible.

https://www.rslawards.com/rockschool/video-exams/