This article, written at the time it was taking place, discusses the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on music education in schools, focusing on the UK. It discusses how schools and teachers have had to make a sudden shift to a largely on-line modality, and the effects of these on teaching and learning in music. It asks questions of curriculum and assessment, especially with regard to the fact that classroom teachers in England are having to use their professional judgment to provide grades for external examinations, where hitherto these would have come from examination boards. It questions the ways in which teachers have been inadequately prepared and supported for this, by years of neoliberal undermining of confidence. It goes on to question accountability, and teacher training, raising issues which, at the time of writing, are of significant concern or music education.

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In this article, case studies of teacher interventions in the composing processes of school students aged 11-14 in generalist music classes are described and discussed. The study finds that music teachers have developed their own strategies for formative assessment, unaware that these are valorized by external agencies.

This chapter considers the role that assessment, particularly formative assessment, has to play with regard to social justice purposes in education. It disentangles the notion of assessment from that of testing. Valorization of music is highly significant, as what is valued tends to be what is assessed. This can result in the disenfranchising of world music, pop, rock, and jazz on a daily basis in music classrooms all over the Western world; so this chapter problematizes the content of the music curriculum, too, asking whether that which can be labeled “school music” has any relevance beyond itself. To counter these problems, this chapter suggests the use of feed forward, which takes place during music making, privileging process over product. It suggests that the principal purpose of assessment should be to improve learning in music, not to simply provide data for systemic purposes.

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