4 What is a musical music lesson?
Reflection point
Reflect on how you would define a ‘musical’ music lesson and the reasons why.
A common criticism of music teaching in schools is that it is insufficiently ‘musical’. For example, in its triennial report into music education in English schools, Ofsted (the body responsible for the inspection of schools in England) reports that:
in too many instances there was insufficient emphasis on active music-making or on the use of musical sound as the dominant language of learning … Put simply … there was not enough music in music lessons.
(Ofsted, 2012, p. 4)
In this final section, and drawing on the learning in the previous sections, we want you to begin to explore and identify some characteristics of a musical music in the context of planning a lesson.