Following from our last post “How to Teach Music in the Classroom” we decided to go into more detail on ways to assess a primary school music class to establish what their musical ability is! The great thing about children is that they are so creative and imaginative. The great thing about primary school music music is that it requires creativity and lots of imaginative thoughts!
Here are three ways to assess your class:
Have a quiz
Pick some music that children will be able to relate to and come up with a list of questions. Your list of questions should include some easy, somewhere in the middle and some challenging questions. After listening to the piece of music ask the class the questions. Their responses will enable you to establish how much musical awareness and knowledge they have.
If their musical awareness and knowledge is below where it should be design a programme that will fill the gap and bring them up to the level they need to be at!
Start with the easy stuff
This is one of our favourite things to do because it builds momentum, musical skills, knowledge and confidence. Starting with the easy involves just that start with really easy and simple musical activities that each child will quickly master. You can use easy material to reinforce some basic musical skills that we help the children in your class as the the content becomes more challenging
Recap over the old stuff
If you know what material the children covered in the previous year it’s good to spend the first weeks of a new school year recapping over that material. This will enable you to establish what the retention rate is like in the class and how musical the class are by going back over material they are familiar with. A bit like starting with the easy stuff, starting with the old stuff can quickly build momentum and confidence in a class
Try these suggestions with your class and see how you get on. If you prefer you can make a booking with us for a short 6 week programme and see how one of our music tutors brings classroom music to life. Contact Mobile Music School for more on this
