Author: wgadmin

I wrote this article for the British Kodaly Academy’s newsletter (Spring 2014)

1100 words

“…if it is possible to change the world we have not created, that of nature, why not change the world of our own creation, that of culture…?” 1
Paulo Freire

Since writing in the Spring 2011 newsletter about my recent introduction to Kodály music teaching I have completed the BKA’s HE1 and HE3 Methodology courses and worked my way through the Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced Musicianship courses with the Kodály Centre of London (David and Yuko Vinden).

Continue reading “My Kodály Journey – Part II (three years on)”

I wrote the following article for the Slow Education movement’s website: http://sloweducation.co.uk/

600 words

Parents, teachers and head teachers are increasingly attracted to ‘slow education’ as the schools they are involved with become more limited in their outlook: a narrow curriculum (e.g. the E-BACC in secondary schools) feeding a test-driven system (e.g. SPAG tests and high stakes SATs in primary schools) where there is little room for reflection and experimentation and, as if to highlight this, a devaluing of the creative arts.

Continue reading “‘Slow Education’ and Music Education”

An article for the briefing document of the Westminster Education Forum’s Keynote Seminar: ‘The Future of Music Education in England’. 09.12.16

600 words

We heard from numerous organisations on the day: Youth Music, In Harmony, Sistema England, Musical Futures, individual schools, individual authorities and so on. I am encouraged by Westminster Education Forum, in writing this article, to focus on relevant issues “…not your organisation’s achievements or activities”.

Continue reading “Music Education in England”

Click on this link to read an article about music teaching at Manorfield, published in the Autumn 2105 edition of the Sing Up magazine:

sing-up-magazine_sept15_will-green-manorfield

250 words

I have been very lucky to be offered the chance to teach music across the whole school from Nursery to Year 6. Discovering the Kodály approach has been musically enlightening but also pedagogically reassuring. For the last three years I have been a Year 1 teacher. A major feature of current educational thinking in England, led by Shirley Clarke, Dylan William and others, is the primacy of the explicit ‘Learning Intention’ usually broken down into several ‘Success Criteria’.

Continue reading “‘Learning Intentions’ vs Unconscious Learning”

This is an essay I wrote about a Year 4 pupil learning music. It’s 2300 words.

Child Profile
‘…Hungarian musical education is not merely a method, rather a philosophy on the role of music in society, in the life of the child, youth and adult.’1
Erzsebet Szonyi

Serkan, aged 9 (d.o.b. 18.12.03), lives with his mother, his father and his younger brother who is in the year below him at school. They all speak Turkish at home.

Continue reading “Pupil Profile”

This is an essay that I wrote as part of my initial studies with the British Kodaly Academy in 2010/11.

2200 words

‘Kodály training is a holistic musical training for children: one in which the ear, the emotions, the mind and the technique are being attended to at the same time…’
Mannie Burn, BKA Newsletter, Summer 2002
The system of music education developed in Hungary during the twentieth century is named after Zoltan Kodaly (1882 – 1967).

Continue reading “An Introduction to Kodály”