Written for specialist class music teachers using the English National Curriculum, the emphasis from this simply written book is upon the different responses which pupils identified as having special educational needs (SEN) may have to the curriculum on offer. The book is part of a series covering all National Curriculum subject areas, and divides the four general areas of special educational needs (cognition and learning; behaviour, emotional and social development; communication and interaction; sensory and/or physical needs) into smaller areas, some syndromes, some impairments, some types of behavioural difficulties. It is essentially concerned with what to do as a class music teacher to involve pupils with special educational needs fully in the musical life of a mainstream secondary school.
Where the authors, both experienced in class music teaching, are writing about areas well known to them, practical ideas and sequences of actions flow well. In less familiar territory, the reader is often left wondering what might happen if a passing suggestion is pursued. So suggestions of working with switches (not currently usual in mainstream settings) with students with motor difficulties, and a thorough description of running a listening task for pupils with behavioural difficulties, are helpful. Conversely, stating without further comment that visually impaired pupils should be at the front of the queue for instrumental lessons, or that ‘it would be a brave pupil with behaviour problems who carried his or her violin home through inner city streets’ (p. 56), does not help the teacher write and implement a fair selection procedure for instrumental lessons.
This book fills a gap, updating a previous series on special needs in each curriculum subject which was also produced by David Fulton Publishers. Music for All (Wills & Peter, Reference Wills and Peter1996) took the three Key Stages of the English National Curriculum and looked at how various groups of pupils with SEN would participate in the musical activities. Since that time, special needs departments have been set up, with a SENCO (SEN co-ordinator) and classroom assistants supporting in class and preparing materials out of lessons, and also Schemes of Work have been produced for the National Curriculum. Meeting SEN in the Curriculum: MUSIC starts with a summary of the current legislation for England. Two general solutions to barriers to learning are mentioned, consistent with the advice given in the National Curriculum: firstly, greater differentiation of tasks and materials and secondly, specialist equipment or approaches or adapted activities. The second chapter lists what should be in a departmental policy (drawn up by all the staff in the department including peripatetic teachers and support staff), and acknowledges the role of local Music Services. The last paragraph adds a welcome positive note, stating that ‘Many pupils with SEN may have a unique contribution to a music lesson. Music may be one activity they can do extremely well and this needs to be discovered and encouraged’ (p. 20).
The longest chapter has a few paragraphs on a list of specific disabilities (not all of which will lead to SEN). Teachers, when told they have a new student with a particular condition coming into their class, will presumably read the appropriate few sentences, and because of the frequent subheadings, can pursue that topic throughout the book. Most of these bullet points of ‘avoid’ and ‘alter’ advice are not music-specific, and at times are annoyingly bland: ‘interact with pupils as much as possible and encourage interaction between pupils. Encourage the pupil to participate – but don't force them’ (p. 39). Other points, such as writing about altering stave notation, would have benefited from illustration in the text.
There are then more music-specific chapters, first on the classroom, which concentrates on describing how particular instruments suit particular areas of SEN; then on teaching and learning styles (with half a page on how to teach the spelling of rhythm). Further chapters on performing and listening – though only half a page on composing and improvising – cover extracurricular as well as class activities. The monitoring and assessment chapter makes reference to National Curriculum ‘P levels’ (QCA, 2001), though without showing these, and then adds a few vague paragraphs about other difficulties pupils have in showing what they can do musically. It would have been more helpful here to have some examples of musical objectives on pupils’ Individual Learning Plans and also to have shown how the NC levels can be achieved by unconventional routes.
A negative image of both teaching assistant, and the relationship between teacher and teaching assistant pervades the ‘Working with Teaching Assistants’ chapter, despite more lists of things to do. This impression of things to do with SEN being just one more hassle for the class teacher is reinforced by a list of questions in Appendix Two for departmental discussion. These include ‘I have enough to do without worrying about kids who can't read or write’ and ‘Musical equipment is too expensive to let pupils with SEN loose with it’(p. 118).
In the last chapter (rather than the first), general teaching principles for SEN in the main four categories, and their subsets, are described. Practical suggestions, such as that for pupils with dyslexia ‘with very complex scores coloured highlighter pens and larger print may be useful’ (p. 103), sit alongside statements including ‘There is no reason why the pupil with Tourette's shouldn't succeed at music. It has even been suggested that Mozart had Tourette's Syndrome’ (p. 102). One particular vignette leaves the reader as confused and challenged as the subject and her peers: ‘Rosanna was in the top set for everything, and in the GCSE Music class. She loved classical music, especially Chopin, or any piano pieces, and loved to watch music videos. Faced with having to write a piece of music for a ceremonial event, but unable to play one note after another in real time, she put her electric wheelchair into reverse, and rammed into the guitarists tuning up at the other side of the room’ (p. 100). There is no discussion of Rosanna's situation.
Appendix Three comes to the rescue having page-long case studies of seven individual students with specific SEN. These are all more positive than the vignettes in the main text which seem designed to shock rather than assist. Those in the Appendix look at class and extracurricular music, examination work and concentrate on what the pupil does. They contain a wealth of detail about teaching techniques and relationships between pupils and between pupils and staff. Had extracts from these convincing stories been on the CD rather than templates and checklists, more readers would be surprised at what can be achieved. Here a story is told, and a piece of music emerges with repetition and rehearsal; a welcome contrast with the fragmented, bullet-point style of the rest of the book, where points are merely signalled and left immediately.
This book is meant as a quick fix guide for the overworked class music teacher; I am not convinced it succeeds. However, it gives insight into the current muddle over the rise of SEN as an overlay in the mainstream education in England. That pupils who find learning difficult should have more goals set, more people to work with, and more paperwork surrounding them, seems odd. To be fair, the book does state at the outset that barriers to learning are just as likely to be because of ‘inappropriate teaching styles, inaccessible teaching materials or ill-advised groupings of pupils’. Indeed it goes on to say teachers should find out what a pupil finds difficult and work out how to solve that rather than think of the syndrome, or disability the pupil is described as having. That surely applies to all pupils.
A book covering current research and thinking on how pupils with SEN in classes are active, reactive, interactive and proactive with music is much needed. Many music policies start with the opening line from the National Curriculum: ‘Music is a powerful, unique form of communication that can change the way pupils feel, think and act’ (NC, 1999, p. 14). If the line taken is that music has a unique role to play in children's development, staff under the direction of the SENCO cannot be expected to have solutions to all the challenges presented by pupils with special educational needs. The music teacher has great responsibilities too. Beware though of the layers of challenge here. Many sections in this book talk of children ‘enjoying’ the musical experiences on offer. The teacher is there to educate, as well as entertain. Including everybody in music endeavour is easier than including everybody in music education in secondary English classrooms. The challenge not tackled sufficiently by this book is how to differentiate the activities on offer to the whole class to enable all pupils make progress. Could this be because we are still insufficiently informed about what progress is achievable in the class setting?
