The Music Education course at Bristol aims to prepare you for the realities of teaching music in secondary schools. We will explore the unique contribution that music can make to a child's development by considering learning and teaching both in the context of the National Curriculum requirements and the wider educational imperative.
Classroom practice will be at the core of our considerations, with priority given to areas such as the learning environment, relationships, language in the classroom, managing students and resources, discipline, differentiation, assessment issues and examination requirements. This will include consideration of the vital importance of the extended curriculum and its relationship to what happens in the classroom.
We also support you in further developing your subject knowledge and skills. In the first term, as a group, we explore a wide variety of music that may be unfamiliar to you, which includes participation in Steel Band, guitar and other workshops.
You will also practise teaching, singing and conducting and you will develop your music ICT skills through sequencing and recording sessions. The music room is equipped with computers including a range of music software.
Later in the course there are Gamelan and other practical workshops and you will have the opportunity to develop and run your own arts workshop for primary school children.
We have close relationships with a number of partnership schools; the delivery and evaluation of the various programme components is shared between the university tutors and the school-based mentors.
During the course you will have the opportunity to teach in at least two different schools and to visit a number of other institutions including primary schools. You will work alongside and learn from experienced teachers who will support and guide you during the three teaching placements.
In the first you observe and explore teaching and learning and carry out team and solo teaching. The major focus of the second placement is developing your skills and understanding through teaching in the classroom, involvement in extra curricular activities and work as a pastoral tutor.
In the final placement there are opportunities for you to extend your classroom skills and to become involved in a variety of school-based projects including sequencing work at KS3 and recording with GCSE students.
Marina began teaching in Hackney, East London, then became Director of Community Music in Wandsworth. During her time with the Inner London Education Authority she also acted as manager of the London Schools’ Symphony Orchestra, taught at the of the authority's schools for Young Musicians and carried out research into Finnish music education and arts industry placements.
Before tutoring on the PGCE programme she was Head of Expressive Arts at Clevedon Community School, North Somerset and also worked at the Janacek Academy for Music and Drama, Czech Republic.
Marina has published articles in a number of professional journals. She is currently researching the impact of ICT on learning in music. Between 2001 and 2005 she led the work of the music team on the InterActive Education Project: a large-scale research project which investigated the use of ICT within schools for teaching and learning (see http://www.interactiveeducation.ac.uk/).
She now has the role of chair of the Steering Committee of Music Education Network (Menet – http://www.menet.info/), a group of 25 music educators from 12 European countries who are researching music education and teacher training practices across Europe (2006-2009). Other interests include formal and informal music education and creativity.
Following a period as a professional musician, Nick taught both instrumental and classroom music in primary and secondary schools as well as within further and higher education contexts. He has also held two posts as composer-in-residence and has worked in music production, creating children's audio materials for HarperCollins, Ladybird and Yamaha-Kemble.
A keen composer, he has composed many children's musical cantatas and pieces for choir and brass ensemble. A further aspect of Nick's work has been that of assessment, having worked as a principal examiner for Edexcel GCSE Music.
Nick's principal research interests are in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in music classrooms and he has published in a range of journals on this subject. He has worked as part of the InterActive schools and ICT project (see http://www.interactiveeducation.ac.uk) and was part of the Kaleidoscope European research network, which focused upon technology enhanced learning (see http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org).
Nick was formerly a member of the PGCE Music team from 2002 - 2007 and returned in 2009 following a period spent researching learning and teaching in the Institute of Sport and Exercise Science at the University of Worcester.
