What is Musical Contexts?
Musical Contexts is a website providing teachers with
a bank of quality, "ready to use", tried and tested and
professionally presented resources for use in the Primary and Secondary music
classroom. The Primary/Key Stage 2 Musical Contexts resources aim to combine music with
established popular Primary class Topics/Themes adding a cross-curricular
approach to learning. Each of the Primary/Key Stage 2 Musical Contexts units draws inspiration from either History-themed
topics/units e.g. Ancient Egypt,
Ancient Greece, The Victorians or Science, Geography, Technology &
Nature-themed topics/units e.g. Machine Music, Water Music, Weather &
Seasons. |
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The Secondary/Key Stage 3 Musical Contexts resources aim to build on
traditionally popular units frequently taught by secondary music specialists
and to prepare pupils for GCSE Music specifications e.g. Building
Bricks (Exploring the Elements of Music), I’ve Got Rhythm (Exploring Rhythm
and Pulse), Sonority City (Exploring Instruments of the Orchestra) and include a range and variety of
resources, together with Schemes of Work and a range of “Lesson
Pathways”. At GCSE Music level, Musical Contexts offers Study & Revision Guides,
Knowledge Organisers, sample GCSE-style Listening Questions to support the OCR GCSE (9-1) Music
Areas of Study. |
What kind of resources does Musical Contexts
offer?
Musical Contexts contains a wide variety of different
teaching and learning resources. At
Primary/Key Stage 2 and Secondary/Key Stage 3, these include Teacher Schemes
of Work with Lesson Overviews, Knowledge Organisers, Learning, Listening,
Composing and Evaluating Worksheets, Performing Activities including Songs
and Scores, 5-Minute Reading Tasks, supporting Cover and Homework
activities and Audio and MIDI files . |
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An example of “Lesson Pathways” from the
Secondary/Key Stage 3 - Hooks and Riffs - Scheme of Work |
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An example of a Knowledge Organiser from the
Secondary/Key Stage 3 Building Bricks unit. |
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An example of a Performing Task from the
Secondary/Key Stage 3 Soundtracks unit. |
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An example of a Listening Task from the
Primary/Key Stage 2 Ancient Egypt unit. |
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An example page from the Rhythms of the World
GCSE Music Study & Revision Guide |
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An example page from the Conventions of Pop
GCSE Music Knowledge Organiser |
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An example GCSE-style Listening Question from
the Film Music Area of Study |
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Examples from the Musical Contexts Year 7 Baseline Assessment Listening Test |
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Examples from the Musical Contexts Cover Bank |
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From time to time, Musical Contexts will also add Seasonal Topic
Packs covering areas
such as Christmas, Halloween, Bonfire Night and End of Term Quizzes. These are not included within the
“full-site subscription” due to costs in obtaining copyright permissions to
use songs, scores and audio materials contained within them. These can be purchase as “add-on” items
(normally at £12.50 per pack) via the
Musical Contexts Shop. |
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The
ever-popular Musical Contexts
Music Cover Bank, provides teachers with a wealth of ready to use
music resources for cover, many of which do not require ICT for those
last-minute moments! |
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At GCSE level, Musical Contexts offers Study and Revision Guides,
Knowledge Organisers and sample GCSE-style Listening Questions to support the
new 2016 OCR GCSE (9-1) Music Areas of Study. |
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The Musical Contexts
Baseline Assessment Listening Test provides a vital way of
measuring pupil's understanding in music at the start of Year 7. |
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As part of Musical Contexts’ drive to cut down on printables and
reduce copying costs, all “Starter and Plenary Activities” within the
Primary/Key Stage 2 and Secondary/Key Stage 3 units are being combined into a
“DOITNOW” and “Plenary” PowerPoint Presentations, complete with embedded
audio and video files. The range and
content of each presentation varies according to the topic/unit, but DOITNOW
activities include: What do you see? Key Word Definitions, Sort
them out!, Mix and Match, Silent Debate, Musical Anagrams, Connect Fours,
Connections, Compare and Contrast and What do you hear? |
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The Musical Contexts Plenary Review presentations focus on
a brief review of learning from the lesson. |
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Examples of DOITNOW activities from the
Musical Contexts Secondary/Key Stage 3 units |
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Examples of Plenary Review Activities from the
Musical Contexts Secondary/Key Stage 3 units |
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I have been teaching for over ten
years and as a director of music in a large school, this resource is
refreshing and inspiring - thank you for allowing musicians to utilise such
fantastic materials. |
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I’ve
had the pleasure of using the site since October but I just wanted to
reiterate how valuable this site is to a non-music teacher teaching music at
KS3. Thanks so much! |
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As a
music educator who has taught around the world I was so impressed with this
site that I joined immediately. I found the educational aids very helpful and
very well written. I would suggest that all music teachers who teach Key
stage 3 and 4 consider becoming a member and having lifetime access to it.
Absolutely fantastic and awesome site! |
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This
is one of my best finds on the internet! I think the site is brilliant. Thank
you! |
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My
year 4’s are singing the Harmonic Minor and recognising the difference from
the natural. We are singing Camel
Driver and my after school GAT’s are playing it on recorder. It is challenging but they are rising to
it! They loved the pyramid composing
too |
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Musical Contexts landed me my first
permanent teaching post in the UK. Ironically the form and structure of the
form and structure observed lesson was what made me so
successful at my interview. I highly recommend all lessons
provided by Musical Contexts! Mark Harding |
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I’ve had great
success with many |
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Just to say THANK YOU for the amazing
units you provide us on Musical Contexts. They are so well put
together, easy to follow, the children love them and there's always something
different for them to do and see and react to! So, thanks for the masterful
job. The units are priceless. Kate Casper Head of Music
St. Catherine's School Twickenham |
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Musical Contexts Feedback
and Testimonials |
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Warm-ups,
including vocal warm-ups, tongue twisters, body percussion and rhythm games,
are a popular way to start music lessons or as an introduction to practical
activities.
The Musical Contexts Complete “Warm-Ups
Compendiums” contains a wealth of short activities - old and new - supported by
teaching notes, scores and audio and video files all contained within
two (very large!) Presentations and
suitable for the Primary and Secondary music classrooms. |
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Examples from the Musical Contexts Complete
“Warm-Ups Compendiums” Volumes 1 & 2 |
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AS & A-Level Music Resources Shop |
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Home |
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About Musical Contexts |
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Subscribe to Musical Contexts |
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)/Help |
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Musical Contexts Year 7 Baseline Assessment |
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2016 GCSE (9-1) Music Resources Index |
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Musical Contexts Music Cover Bank |
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Musical Contexts Shop & Seasonal Topic Packs |
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Musical Contexts Analyses
of Musical Works |
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Musical Contexts “Warm-Ups” Compendiums |
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Musical Contexts World Music Resources |
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Musical Contexts Music History & Theory Resources |
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Primary/Key Stage 2 Music Resources Index |
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Secondary/Key Stage 3 Music Resources Index |
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Musical Contexts SQUILT |
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The Musical
Contexts SQUILT Listening
Exercises provide a bank of general listening tasks on a variety of music
from different times and places - great for homework or home learning! |
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I used
some of the GCSE material yesterday with a low ability student who has had
difficulty accessing the curriculum. The lesson proved very successful
with the student who enjoyed the wide selection of musical excerpts. |
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Your site - is bloody brilliant. I am the director of music at a private
preparatory school and am currently in the summer holiday's after my first
year there. The music department (one teacher) had been following 'Music
Express' - not my favourite scheme of work, it dumbs down rather a lot so I
reinvented the wheel and replanned the lot. How I WISH I had discovered your
site earlier! I am going to implement
about half of your units of work, and can't wait!! Granted your units are for
secondary age, and we go from years 2 - 8, but with a little tweaking they
are PERFECT units of work. Great to see some proper notation in there too. Chris Andrews |
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We have been trialling various units
of work from the site and are very pleased with the way they are
running. These are going well and the
students are gaining a lot from the resources. To make life easier we have downloaded the
worksheets and formed a booklet from them so that all students have access to
the worksheets immediately and this seems to be working very well. The lesson plans are very helpful also and
are a good starting point for the staff.
We have amended some worksheets slightly to suit our needs and we have
added some other sheets into our booklets to make it slightly more
flexible. We think that the site is
very good particularly for KS3 and the team here felt we should let you know
how much we have enjoyed using the resources this year. Jonathan
Haslett, Head of Music,
St John’s Catholic
School and Sixth Form Centre, Bishop Auckland |
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Rob replies : “One of the main
aims of the site, was to allow teachers the flexibility to adapt and refine,
supplement and support existing resources and schemes of work and it seems
that St. John’s RC School & SFC has done just this! There is the
opportunity to teach the lesson plans exactly as written for those who wish,
but it’s great to see schools such as this using the resources in a more
flexible way.” |
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I just wanted to write to you at
Musical Contexts to say how exciting and excellent the course is proving to
be. The children I teach from KS2-4 are really enjoying it and getting so
much from it too. I have delivered many schemes before in the different
schools I have worked but this is proving to be so enjoyable and so well
researched. It actually allows a music teacher to be a music teacher and is
just as enjoyable for me to teach as it is for the students to learn. So
thank you very much. Sian
Canning,
Dhahran British
Grammar School , Saudi Arabia |