The KS3 Music Education Hub is a free music curriculum and online resource for 11-14 year olds. A musical taxonomy of cognitive steps supercharges creativity, ownership, identity, and independence while students create and manage an online portfolio that showcases their unique musical journey. I have used this curriculum as stand-alone provision for classes that are more independent, within well equipped, specious schools. However, I currently use this program as provision for extension students alongside my music course.  The curricular aims are as follows:

• To promote confidence and identity; preparing students for GCSE, A-Level and IB courses.

• To enable seamless transition between classwork and any eventuality where students need to work from home.

• To develop independence and decision making.

• To assess how students access music cognitively, in order to remove the subjective or limiting nature of standardised music assessment.

How does the course Work?

• All of the resources that the students need can be found on the Student Portal. I always create a link to the portal on Google Classroom, so that students may access it from any location, with any device.

• All students from year 7 to 9 create a professional online portfolio. The portfolio showcases student identity in it's design, and home page content. It is also used to upload video evidence of musical progress in relation to the steps (learning objectives).

• The teacher uses the resources found on the student portal to model basic, un-assessed instrumental skills to each year group. These skills are designed to increase independence, dispelling the myth that only the elite succeed. These resources are constantly accessible to the students and can be refreshed based on AFL data gaps or upon student request. 

• Following this, each student (or group of students) selects a piece of music to explore, based on their own preferences, ability level, current instrument of study, and goals. 

• An exemplar project page is consistently monitored by the students as they develop during each step. It contains a preferred layout, course expectations, tutorial videos for all six steps (think of these as lesson objectives), and clear success criteria for each year group. The teacher can model their approach to each step for the students to enhance understanding. This is especially important during step 4 in which theory and analysis feature more heavily.

• Students  are then assessed using steps that reveal how deeply they have  interacted with their own musical starting points. The steps are based on a musical taxonomy.

• Assessment is based on the evidence provided in the portfolio. Each completed step represents a mark which can be tailored to suit your reporting system. For example, step 6 could be an A* grade and you can then work backwards from there. The automated tracker featured in the above video can be downloaded below.

Planning and the Curriculum

Lessons are not planned for in a traditional sense because each student chooses their own piece of music to study and they may progress through the steps at their own pace; maximising differentiation opportunities. Students may also change their song choice as frequently as they desire and can repeat the process once finished, with a new musical selection. We are measuring how deeply each student accesses their chosen material which grants insights as to how deeply they can theoretically access any piece of music. Below you will find the instrumental skills as well as the learning objectives and success criteria located in the sample project page.