Written version of RIME paper (GCID) for MER, Exeter 2007
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what’s really opened my eyes to this project.... Kids who I wouldn’t have
expected have come out with things...
There was also general agreement that the project was able to stretch pupils at
the opposite end of the spectrum, including those who were most able and those who
took additional instrumental lessons:
-Yasmin (Head of Music): And the stronger, more musically able children,
I’ve noticed a huge improvement just in their manner and attitude towards the
subject, that they just want to get on with it, they just want to be able to
produce more and more music. . No, I don’t think I’ve noticed any
deterioration, absolutely none.
Teachers noticed that pupils with a range of ability displayed their musicality
in new ways, or as one teacher put it, they ‘revealed some hidden musicality’:
-Hugh (Assistant Music Teacher): I think I’ve seen and heard that kids can
produce slightly different outcomes, because, you know, what we plan to do,
we also kind of plan an expected outcome from what they’re going to achieve.
Whereas because the project was a bit more open and you know it’s, the kids
achieved different things on different instruments that we might, you know
because they chose their own, suddenly I’m, I’m slightly more aware of who
can play what and what they can do on different instruments. Rather than
saying ‘Today we’re doing this on these particular instruments’. . Yeah, it
did reveal it, definitely revealed some hidden musicality. Mantsebo, for
instance, I didn’t know he was quite so good on the drum kit. . Now I know
he can play that well.
Overall, there was agreement that the task involved what is known as
‘differentiation by outcome’. In other words, all pupils were set the same task, but it
was adaptable to the differing abilities of individuals, not by virtue of being divided
up into separate, progressive levels of difficulty, but according to what each
individual produced as the outcome: