Online Teaching Materials
Downloadable resources for music teachers
Teaching materials are an integral part of a music teacher's practice. Every month Music Teacher publishes downloadable materials for KS3, 4 and 5, offering complete units of work, GCSE and A Level set-work guidance, and practical ideas across all levels for both classroom and peripatetic teachers. All materials are written by experienced teachers and examiners and provide indispensable content for your teaching.
If you would like to see an example of a Teaching Material, please click here.
SubscribeAQA, Edexcel & OCR: Olivier Messiaen
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
As a teacher, Olivier Messiaen taught many of the figures who became giants in the post-war avant-garde – among them Boulez, Stockhausen and Xenakis. And as a composer, he sits on a line from Debussy...
Unfamiliar listening in the new GCSE specifications
Secondary education KS 4 Archive
The new GCSE music specifications have ensured that all four boards now expect students to be confident listening to and appraising unfamiliar music. With three of the boards providing students with...
AQA, OCR, Edexcel & Eduqas: a Jazz Primer, Part 2
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
In part one of this two-part jazz resource (Music Teacher, March 2017), we traced how jazz evolved from humble beginnings as a folk music into being the mainstream popular music of its day. By 1945,...
OCR AoS4: Religious music of the Baroque period
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
In this resource, I give advice on how to tackle the background to the topic, recommend some online resources, and provide a ‘way in’ to the music itself, including specific works that could be...
Edexcel AS and A level AoS5: Debussy's Estampes
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
Students are studying Debussy's Estampes and the other set works in preparation for a summer Edexcel exam paper either at AS or A Level. A previous Music Teacher resource (January 2017) has already...
AQA, OCR, Edexcel & Eduqas: a Jazz Primer, part 1
Secondary education KS 5 Archive
Jazz is an important area of study for A level across several of the boards. This first part traces jazz history from its ‘raggedy’ beginnings in the 1890s through to the gloss and sophistication of...
OCR AoS5: Conventions of Pop
Secondary education KS 4 Archive
Of all the Areas of Study for the 9-1 OCR GCSE, AoS5 on Conventions of Pop is likely to be the one where students already have at least some familiarity with the music. However, although they may...
Edexcel AS & A level Music AoS4: Courtney Pine's Back in the Day
Secondary education KS 5 AS A2 Archive
Courtney Pine's album Back in the Day was released in 2000, and is one of the set works that both AS and A Level students have to study as part of Edexcel's Area of Study 4: Popular Music and Jazz.
IB SL/HL 2017-19: Kodály's Dances of Galánta
Secondary education KS 5 IB Archive
It's an odd pairing at first glance: Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 (covered in its own Music Teacher resource, February 2016) with Kodály's Dances of Galánta. And yet these prescribed works for...
AQA GCSE AoS2: The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Secondary education KS 4 Archive
‘It was 20 years ago today…’ sang the Beatles on the opening track of their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. And it is now actually 50 years ago that they first sang these words. So it's a...