The Generalist Primary Teacher of Music: a Problem of Confidence

Abstract

Why don't more primary teachers teach music? This article describes a study of forty non-specialist primary B.Ed, students over their year-long professional music course. Initially, most students have little confidence in their ability to teach music. As the course progresses, a smaller proportion of students who lack confidence teach music during school experience. A cycle has developed in which student teachers worried about music do not learn to teach it because teachers with similar worries often do not teach it. The author argues that students who lack confidence in music need more encouragement from all those involved in their professional preparation if they are to break out of this cycle.In primary schools music is often seen as the province of specialist, not generalise teachers. Whereas teachers with special responsibility for other areas of the curriculum usually act mainly in an advisory and administrative capacity, specialist music teachers often assume total responsibility for the music teaching of several classes.In the Primary Survey (DES, 1978) HMI found that approximately 70 % of primary schools, and 84 % of primary schools which are at least three form entry, have a teacher with special curricular responsibility for music. The number of schools which have such music specialist teachers exceeded the number having teachers with special responsibility for any other subject. This pattern was repeated in more recent surveys when HMI found approximately 84% of first schools (DES, 1982) and 82% of combined and 8-12 middle schools (DES, 1985 a) had specialist music teachers.Many primary teachers do not teach music to their own classes. The Primary Survey (DES, 1978) showed that 40% of seven-year-olds, 50 % of nine-year-olds, and 55 % of elevenyear-olds are taught music by a teacher other than their class teacher. More recently, HMI (DES, 1985) found that only about 40% of teachers of junior children in combined and 8-12 middle schools teach any music. In both surveys, there is no other subject in which less children are taught by their class teacher. Indeed, the Primary Schools Research and Development Group (1983) found that 26.6% of a sample of 465 teachers think there is little need for all teachers to be competent B.

Trainee primary-school teachers’ perceptions of their effectiveness in teaching music

“…There has been a long-standing debate as to whether primary school music is best taught by music specialists or nonspecialist class teachers (Wheway, 2006;Hennessy, 2006). Mills (1989) warned against the overuse of specialists suggesting that 'having a special teacher for music does not necessarily improve its image'. She suggested that children valued the subject less if it was not taught by their own class teacher as part of their whole curriculum and suggested that 'generalist teaching allows greater opportunity for music to take place as the need arises… because a class teacher has knowledge of individual children which a visiting specialist teacher cannot hope to match.…”

Cross-national Comparisons of Background and Confidence in Visual Arts and Music Education of Pre-Service Primary Teachers

“…Earlier research into music education (Fromyhr, 1995;Mills, 1989;Russell-Bowie, 1993;Ryan, 1991) indicates that the majority of pre-service primary teachers enter their teacher education courses having minimal, if any, formal music education experience, either from school or from outof-school activities. Lephard (1995) adds to these observations, indicating that many pre-service primary teachers have little musical literacy and the university time allocated for music education is inadequate to sufficiently prepare confident and competent teachers in music education.…”

Towards an effective freeware resource for music composition in the primary classroom

“…It is therefore vital to have a qualified teacher overseeing music lessons. Generalist teachers, or teachers with limited musical experience, have shown a greater capability to deliver a quality music education than, say, music specialists with limited teaching experience (Ofsted, 2012: 18-19), although studies continually address issues about confidence in teaching the subject (Mills, 1989;Hennessy, 2000;Seddon and Biasutti, 2008;Hallam et al, 2009;RussellBowie, 2009;Biasutti, 2010;Garvis, 2013;de Vries, 2013;Biasutti et al, 2015). Furthermore, the teaching of composition is a reported source of uncertainty for specialist as well as generalist teachers (Winters, 2012).…”