The first week of the semester at the Hayes School with Jane Werry
This first week has been interesting. I went three out of the five days because Jane is part time so she doesn’t teach on Tuesdays, and she was sick on Thursday. I watched several different classes, including some seventh grade, eighth grade, and ninth grade general music courses. This is the kind of music class where all students take it, much like our middle school music courses, so you have to find things that are going to be interesting to that age of students. Jane did a lot of stuff from Musical Futures and some with MF influence. She taught a few classes where they were learning chord progressions for Stay with Me by Sam Smith on either ukulele, guitar, or keyboard. And she taught another lesson where they were learning chord inversions on the keyboard for a different three chord song (another pop song I can’t remember right now). The format was the same for both classes. She did a bit of showing them on the board how to read the keyboard chart (not 5-line staff, but more iconic notation), and then everyone got out an instrument. They have enough keyboards in the room for about 30 students to be two on an instrument. This part of the class was decentered and more work-on-your-own or with a friend, which I love, though it can feel a bit like organized chaos. But that’s exactly the kind of classroom that I run and a very effective way for students to learn and experiment! I love to see how she was doing that with multiple classes.
I also watched Jane teach a more traditional music lesson to a middle school level class where they were practicing counting quarter notes, eighth notes, and triplets. But she used a cool backing track and the word category she was using was names of bus stops around London - that was fun. These classes meet every two weeks for about an hour, I think. I’m still working out how often each class comes in – it’s definitely different students each day at the MS level.
For the high school students (that’s grades 10-13) those people choose music as their elective, so there are fewer of them, and they are supposedly more focused and interested in music. Most of those classes were up in the music technology lab. Grade 12 was working on re-creating their own arrangement of Tainted Love in Logic Pro. And grade 13 was working on creating their own song using that software. The grade 13 people also were able to go into a recording studio and record pieces of musical motives using real instruments if they needed to for their compositions. These classes meet every day of the week for about an hour, I think. This kind of teaching doesn’t require much once you get them set up, except going around to check on them and see if they need help.
I also watched Jane teach a grade 12 music class where the students were learning about a couple of different Mozart arias from The Marriage of Figaro. This was another different but interesting course, because the students were looking at their own scores, and she had her own score up on the screen and they were talking in depth about chordal analysis and use of different musical ideas and concepts within the piece. They were going very deep in the analysis. I was surprised to see this because to me this is something like what a second semester music theory course at the collegiate level would be doing. And they were able to do it with their students in high school! My thought: how much more prepared would music majors be if they had this type of required course at the high school level?!
Another interesting thing about the MS and HS music program is that they don’t have a culture of large ensembles like we do in the US. Their music courses are primarily what I just described. However during the 40-minute lunch break, students can choose to come to band, orchestra, choir, and ukulele club – these are the extracurricular musical options that students opt into. And they don’t meet every day. For example, choir meets during lunch on Monday, band meets during lunch on Wednesday, and orchestra meets during lunch on Friday. Ukulele club also meets during lunch on Friday but a different teacher teaches that. I was also surprised to see that Jane conducts the band and the orchestra classes. A music teacher named Olivia conducts the choir class and another music teacher named Emma conducts the ukulele club.
As for music teaching staff, there are 3 part time music teachers (Jane, Emma, and Olivia) and two teaching aides (one just graduated college with a degree not in music education and one just graduated from Hayes School in May – I’m not sure they are paid as teachers per se, but they are the ones who seemed to be there every day of the week. I’m still figuring out how that works). The department is currently down one full-time music teacher, so Jane is filling in for more things than normal, but apparently with no extra pay! I did just find out that they will hopefully have a new full-time music teacher when the new term starts after Easter, so Jane is excited about that.
I asked Jane about how the students learn their band and orchestra instruments, and she said that many of them take private lessons outside of school. But they don’t really have a culture of like beginning band or anything like that. And it’s not part of the K-13 music program. Their music courses at the middle school level are all inclusive of all students but they’re much more I think comprehensive for a music program rather than teaching primarily large ensembles. At the high school level, it’s completely different because like I said students choose the music elective and therefore, they take more intensive music courses. The upside of that is they get a much more comprehensive musical education. The downside is that there’s so few of them who choose it. My philosophical conundrum is: what is better? Having a secondary music program like in the US where you have lots of participation in band and choir and some schools have options of additional things like music tech, guitar, or music theory; or having a secondary music program like in both the UK and Ghana where HS students choose the music elective, but the course structure is more focused on music theory and composition and less on music-making? I am not sure. But I know that it’s extremely different between the US and the UK. What I do know is that I like that here there is not an overemphasized focus on large ensembles at the secondary level. That is extremely refreshing to see and it’s interesting to see what can be taught when ensembles are not the primary focus.
I’ve got another week at least at the Hayes School, and I’m excited to have more conversations and learn more about the how and why of what is going on there!
This is on the board in the music office and I think it's hilarious...also gives you a glimpse of their sense of humor around the music department!
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