Year 7

Introduction to the building blocks of music (pitch, duration, timbre etc) and starting group composition and performing of pieces; Holst’s The Planets and the instruments of the orchestra; medieval plainchant and Hildegard of Bingen; Indonesian gamelan including composition and performing using authentic modes.

Year 8

West African drumming, including a contextual study, group performance and improvising skills; context and language of blues music, including using the blues scale for improvisation over the 12-bar blues structure; introduction to opera, including The Magic Flute as a focus work.

Year 9

A pop song project, where girls work in groups to recreate a pop song of their own choosing from scratch using their own instruments and voices; Minimalism, with group performing; A contextual study of reggae with a focus on the life and work of Bob Marley; introduction to Indian music, including improvisation using an authentic Hindustani rag and then incorporating it into a Bollywood-style composition project.

Year 10

First year of our school directed course (offered in place of GCSE). Introduction to history of Western music, initial set work (excerpts from Mozart, Marriage of Figaro), issues in world music, experimental and traditional composition exercises, including aleatoric techniques and four-part harmony. Students also build up a portfolio of performance recordings which are assessed as coursework.

Year 11

Second year of our school directed course. More specialised topics in music history, including a second set work (The Beatles: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band); composition coursework (romantic piano miniature, text setting and other options). Students complete a portfolio of performance recordings which are assessed as coursework.

Year 12

AQA AS level course, embracing the western tonal tradition (wide variety of unprepared listening extracts), Beethoven’s First Symphony (set work), a genre study of British pop music from 1960 to the present day. Composition (20 hours’ controlled time) and performing (solo and ensemble options) are both completed as coursework.

Year 13

AQA A2 course, continuing with unprepared listening exercises, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony (set work), a genre study of chamber music from Mendelssohn to Debussy. Composition (20 hours’ controlled time) and performing (a solo recital) are both completed as coursework.