Conclusion

In this free course, Teaching secondary music, you have looked at some key concepts and theories that underpin music teaching in the secondary classroom. You began by thinking about what is meant by learning and noting that teaching cannot be said to have happened unless there has been learning. You then went on to consider the many different ways in which musical understanding might be demonstrated.

In the second section you considered what there is to learn in music and particularly different kinds of musical knowledge. We argued here for the centrality of knowledge of music in music education.

Section 3 looked at how and where musical teaching and learning takes place. You noted how important it is that secondary music teachers recognise how much musical learning takes place beyond the school gates and take this into account in their own teaching. Finally, drawing on the previous three sections, Section 4 identified some key principles underpinning musical music teaching.