Group cooperation, inclusion and disaffected pupils: some responses to informal learning in the music classroom

Written version of RIME paper (GCID) for MER, Exeter 2007

-Richard (Head of Music): And also because they’re different skills like, you
know, it’s totally differentiated. But, it is differentiated by outcome rather than
task, which is another sort of thing I’ve had to struggle with. But at the end of
the day, each pupil has actually made significant progress. And I have been
convinced, you know, even when the groups performed. There are one or two
individuals, well several individuals, who I thought ‘No I don’t, I would never
give them the credit to be able to do that’ you know, sort of bass lines on bass
guitars you know, there’s a girl in one of the extracts, and I just thought
there’s no way she would ever have been able to do, have the option to do that,
in my standard music curriculum. And so that’s been really good as well...

As the project went on, teachers came to question how they had previously judged
low and high musical ability.

Inclusion: disaffected pupils

I have already mentioned that several individuals who took up leadership roles and
who showed ability, were pupils who had not been expected to do so by their
teachers. Now I would like to consider some further issues, particularly in relation to
pupils who were identified as disaffected, not only in music but other subjects too. I
will do this through two short stories.

Tyler: Imaginative play and the importance of musical delineation

Tyler was on a school initiative to focus on underachieving boys. Sandra, his Head of
Music, put a report into my hands one day, which she had dug out from the records
during the previous year. It read:

Tyler has failed to do any work in music for the past two weeks. In today’s
lesson, he did not have any equipment and was constantly out of his seat.
There were a number of silly instances including hiding behind the door,
playing with the projector screen, etc. He was frequently talking, calling out

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