KS3 Scheme of Work 'Happy Birthday'

by Liz, Tim and Ian @HuntSchoolMusic

We currently use this scheme of work at the start of year 8. It's based on ideas around musical memory, recall, and things that we misremember and piece together from fragments. It's the kind of thing you can use as a starting point for any age or stage. Unusually for us, the 'ladder' that accompanies this unit doesn't include any conventional notation. That's because the focus is almost exculsively on students using their ears, rather than their eyes to make musical decisions.

The resource comprises:

  • KS3 progression map details
  • Musicianship training ideas
  • A student/assessment/progress ladder for the hands-on-making-stuff-in-sound
  • Listening questions (for teaching/ discussing/ testing/ homework)