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This article considers the impact that the Swanwick-Tillman spiral article (Swanwick & Tillman, 1986) has had on contemporary thinking in music education in England. Building on a discussion concerning the antecedents of the notion of a spiral, the ways in which a generalist music curriculum can be planned and organised are discussed. Drawing on the contemporary example of the Model Music Curriculum (DfE, 2021), and then charting this thinking as arising from a graded music examination repertoire-based way of planning, this article goes on to explain why the Swanwick-Tillman spiral still has relevance, as well as much to teach us in today's very different music education world where assessment, measurement and accountability are dominant. Although centred on the situation in England, there are nonetheless implications for curriculum planners in many other jurisdictions too.

Music education in England has been in a state of flux for a number of years due to the complexities and variability of its delivery. Many of the issues surrounding music education in England are associated with policy and practice in schools, and the complexities of funding and deployment of music activities. This creates contextual, structural and political boundaries, especially on partnership work that seeks to join up provision. This paper presents findings from a four-year longitudinal project that aimed to explore the role of partnership work between schools and out-of-school music providers. It also critiques structural issues and limitations of music education in England, offering new insight and resolutions. Methodologically there has been an emerging interest in diffractive approaches and the intra-actions they produce (Barad [2007] "Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning." Durham, NC: Duke University Press; Haraway [2008] "When Species Meet." Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). An important part of the paper is to outline the importance of these novel methodologies that go beyond reflection and raise important questions regarding the role of diffractive and intra-active processes in education research projects. This is a novel consideration, which is pertinent for music education research internationally. The paper concludes with a reconceptualisation of partnership work, and new theoretical underpinnings for future partnerships.

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.

The whole class ensemble tuition (WCET) programme in English schools is a somewhat singular and relatively recent arrival onto the teaching and learning scene. It arose from a remark made by an English politician and has grown from there into becoming a regular feature in the music education landscape in primary schools. It has elements which will be familiar to music educators in many parts of the world, whilst having some aspects which are unique to the English context. In order to place the WCET programme into perspective, this paper outlines the policy context which gave rise to it and explains what it involves and how it is operationalised in schools.

The Whole Class Ensemble Tuition (WCET) is a model of teaching and learning music which takes place in many English primary schools. It is a relative newcomer to music pedagogy in the primary school. In the groundbreaking study reported in this paper, two new models of teaching and learning music are proposed. These are (a) "Music education starts with the instrument" and (b) "Music education takes place via the instrument." Conceptualised descriptions of classroom music pedagogies are not commonplace, and so this paper makes a significant contribution to the music education research literature by delineating, describing and labelling two of these with reference to the WCET programme. These distinctions are of international significance and are useful to describe differences between programmes, which constitutes a major contribution to music curricula discussions. The paper concludes that clarity on the purposes of teaching and learning is fundamental to effective musical pedagogy and that this is a matter that education systems worldwide should be considering.

In England, there is a National Curriculum in place which is intended to outline what will be taught and learned in each of the required subjects in state schools, music being one of these subjects. However, for some years, a right-wing conservative government has been working on systemic change, which removes many schools from state control and lets them operate independently; these schools are known as "academies." Alongside this academization program, there has also been considerable governmental intervention in the content of the subject of music in schools. This governmental intervention needs to be viewed against a background of promotion of what the government's own school inspection body has referred to as "cultural capital," although this is far removed from Bourdieu's use of the term and is more concerned with the promotion of what can be seen as middle-class virtues, and bourgeois cultural views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberalism in government thought and action has taken a very specific route in England. Building on a policy research grounding, and subjecting governmental and ministerial utterances to careful consideration, this article discusses the ways in which the specifically English situation has evolved. It reports that government has been carefully manipulative in terms of meeting its objectives and of finding ways in which to privilege science, technology, engineering, and math subjects in the curriculum of schools, while at the same time downplaying the place and role of the arts. It describes how school performance measures, the English Baccalaureate and Progress 8, are utilized to achieve the desired ends. The means by which governmental policies find their outworkings in the day-to-day lived experiences of schools are discussed, and the pernicious effects of these policies on the operationalizing of arts curricula generally, and music education in particular, are instantiated and discussed.

The editorial from the British Journal of Music Education discusses the importance of international conferences in music education and highlights keynotes from the European Association of Music in School (EAS) conference in Dublin. Keynote speakers Huib Schippers, Marie McCarthy, and Anna Houmann address topics such as cultural diversity, social transformations, and empowering students through pedagogies of the possible. The editorial also provides a brief overview of articles in the journal focusing on topics like playful musical learning, music teacher identity, and the role of higher education institutions in preparing musicians for teaching careers. [Extracted from the article]

Despite ostensibly sharing a common language, music education terminology as used in England and the United States has many different practical meanings and corresponding connotations. In this comparative study, the authors consider these differences in relation to whole-class learning of instrumental music, a comparative newcomer to the English system but well established in the US context. The authors describe and discuss learning instrumental music in each of these jurisdictions along with the concomitant assessment practices. Among the dissimilar educational requirements are composing in the UK as compared to civic engagement in the US. This and other differences result in educators conceptualising teaching and learning in substantially different ways and, more importantly, in maintaining contrasting underlying assumptions. The authors conclude that international collaboration and analysis of this topic need to account for these differences when comparing and contrasting instrumental music education programmes.

An editorial is presented which discusses the role of school music teachers to make children love classical music, especially when such preferences are subjective. It suggests that valuing music education should not involve discouraging students who love different genres and emphasize the importance of recognizing and respecting diverse musical tastes among young learners.

This paper explores secondary school music teachers' current practice with regard to the organisation and assessment of composing at Key Stage 4. It draws on research undertaken on a nation-wide basis in England, via the use of two online surveys and face-to-face interviews. In terms of the organisation of classroom composition, the study found that the place of staff notation is currently under-theorised in terms of a developmental musical thinking tool, as opposed to what might be termed a "storage system". The research also found that ICT has brought composing to a wider range of participants. Considerably more time is spent on composing than other musical processes within a typical Key Stage 4 music classroom. The study found that music teachers are, in general, satisfied with the sorts of assessments which are being done at Key Stage 4. Examination Board criteria for assessing composing are universally utilised but there is a feeling that whilst these criteria are fit for purpose, they do not always reflect the effort that students have put into their work. Some styles which are "set" by examination boards are seen as being inappropriate for some students to access.

This article reports the results of research into teachers' practices concerning the assessment of composing at Key Stage 3 in the National Curriculum for Music in England. It finds that many teachers are using NC levels for assessing individual pieces of work, a process for which they were never intended. It also finds that teachers find it difficult to show progress using NC levels, and that many teachers have rewritten the levels into child-friendly language, thus causing further difficulties.

This study addresses the baseline assessment of pupil composing competencies at age 11+. It asks whether it might be possible for these to be evaluated by the use of a whole-class listening task. A rationale for this proposal is discussed. Results from a pilot study which administered an original audiated puzzle-task to a cohort of pupils, followed by a related composing assignment, are presented, analysed and discussed. This methodology is shown to reveal information about pupil composing competencies.

Much composing that takes place in the lower secondary school is undertaken as a group activity. This paper investigates what is involved when pupils work in this way, and offers a model of processes and phases, which can be used to account for group composing. The model describes what is taking place, and charts the ways in which groups of pupils progress through phases during their composing work. Results from trialling the model are discussed, and ways in which classroom teachers might use it proposed.

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. (Contains 3 figures.)