Policy and assessment in lower secondary school music education. Don't do what the English have.

This presentation will discuss England’s shifting policy for secondary school music education by exploring the policy background to these changes, viewed through the particular lens of assessment.

England’s system of enacting and policing policy changes has led schools to feel that education policy focus has moved away from attainment, and onto progress. By concentrating on progress England’s Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) are signalling that they are concerned with the speed at which attainment takes place, rather than just noting that it has taken place.

Presenter Professor Martin Fautley will cover the role of policy makers, and discuss where policy-making rests in England, with the legislature, or with Ofsted – the judiciary and police rolled into one. He will also explain why he recommends that international music education does not follow the lead that England has taken in this regard!

Professor Martin Fautley is director of research in the school of education and social work at Birmingham City University. He has a wealth of experience in music education, both in terms of pedagogy, and of music education research. After enjoying many years as a classroom music teacher, he then undertook full-time Doctoral research working across the education and music faculties at Cambridge University, investigating teaching, learning, and assessment of classroom music making, with a focus on composing as a classroom activity.

He is widely known for his work on researching assessment in the classroom, but also researches understandings of musical learning and progression (especially in the novice stages), composing, and creativity. He regularly undertakes research and evaluation projects in the field of music education.

Professor Fautley is the author of eight books, including “Assessment in Music Education”, published by Oxford University Press. He has written and published over fifty journal articles, book chapters, and academic research papers on a range of aspects of teaching and learning, and regularly presents the fruits of his researches at international conferences. He is co-editor of the British Journal of Music Education.