Powering up Creativity, Collaboration and Innovation
across the Music Curriculum
Hosted by the University of Sussex in collaboration with Sussex Music Hub, this FREE, one-day music education event for secondary music teachers at all stages of their careers, working in schools across Brighton & Hove, East Sussex, West Sussex and University of Sussex partnership schools.
Keynotes are from Professor Martin Fautley on assessment and progression in the secondary music classroom, and Professor Simon Purcell and Pauline Black on Jazz mindset: why groove your classroom. Workshops will include a focus on music technology including pathways at KS4 and beyond; creative use of AI; diversifying the KS4 curriculum; singing in the KS3 classroom; improvisation in the classroom – easy wins; and embedding musical assessment.
We will also consider the potential for music within and more broadly across the wider school, together with opportunities for collaborative working.
Workshops
Morning Sessions
Staging a Musical Production | Teach Meet
Stella Knight with Lizzie Holmers, Jane Bowen-Melfi, Ryan Kearsey , Kenny Park
Join us for an inspiring TeachMeet session featuring four Sussex teachers who will share their experiences of staging school musicals. Discover how they brought productions to life in professional theatres, support SEND students to shine, empowered students to run backstage, sound, and lighting and generate income to fund their shows. It should be an opportunity to take away practical tips to enhance your own school musical experience.
Changing the Culture of Singing in the Classroom
Rachel Maby, West Sussex Music and Issy Adams, Create Music
Do you have reluctant singers in your class, who struggle to engage? Issy Adams and Rachel Maby will explore teaching methods, rehearsal technique and repertoire to support unconfident students to take part in singing activities, both in the classroom and in a school choir.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Creative and Generative Music Technologies in the Classroom
Danny Bright, UoS and Chris
This workshop will explore some practical applications of creative and generative music technologies in music education. This will include applications for generative AI including in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for mixing, voice generation, musical analysis and track splitting, as well as an exploration of cutting edge creative technologies. The workshop is intended to both inspire and give you practical applications that you can use in your classroom.
Assessment in the music classroom
Martin Fautley
In this session the main focus will be on assessment at KS3, but with some slight excursions into KS4-5 as well. I will be asking teachers to reflect on what they teach, and how they then go about assessing what they and the pupils do as a result of this. I will also be asking teachers to think about their own assessment practices, and how these mesh (or maybe don’t!) with whole-school systems with which they have to fit.
Diversifying KS4 | Teach Meet
Duncan Mackrill
The second of our Teach Meet style sessions is looking at a number of options for diversifying KS4 and making it inclusive. This will include ideas for building numbers at KS4 through adopting successful approaches at KS3 to give all students the confidence to consider GCSE Music as an option, and exploring the Technical Performance element of GCSE music coursework and techniques to enable students to be successful in this area.
Music Technology: Music Production and Creative Pathways
Stella Knight with….
This session will explore how music technology can drive student engagement, personal development, and career readiness through innovative teaching, mentoring, and industry links. Adrian will discuss how KS3 tech units have boosted interest and uptake at KS4. Audio Active will outline the impact of 1-to-1 mentoring on young people’s personal and social development and musical growth. Producer and composer Daniel Knight will present career
pathways in music, focusing on roles in composition, production, and sound engineering.
Growing a thriving musical ecosystem in your school through Curriculum and Musical Enrichment
Ally Daubney
This session will provide a framework for you to consider and further develop the music offer in your school to further improve and expand inspiring and inclusive opportunities for young people in your community to engage, develop and thrive within and beyond the curriculum.
Afternoon Sessions
Adopting a Jazz Mindset
Simon Purcell and Pauline Black
This practical session focuses on the jazz mindset, real-time and rhythmic music. A ‘jazz mind’ offers useful strategies for musical growth, knowledge and understanding. For teachers, the ‘jazz mind’ is not unattainable and doesn’t necessarily require a degree in jazz.
Through practical activities and discussing the how, what and why of musical learning, we will challenge and hopefully help you enhance your existing schemes of work and get your classrooms grooving with confidence, skill and the curiosity that is at the core of the Jazz mindset.
Changing the Culture of Singing in the Classroom
Rachel Maby, West Sussex Music and Issy Adams, Create Music
Do you have reluctant singers in your class, who struggle to engage? Issy Adams and Rachel Maby will explore teaching methods, rehearsal technique and repertoire to support unconfident students to take part in singing activities, both in the classroom and in a school choir.
Music Technology – Music Production and Creative Pathways
Stella Knight
This session will explore how music technology can drive student engagement, personal development, and career readiness through innovative teaching, mentoring, and industry links. Adrian will discuss how KS3 tech units have boosted interest and uptake at KS4. Audio Active will outline the impact of 1-to-1 mentoring on young people’s personal and social development and musical growth. Producer and composer Daniel Knight will present career
pathways in music, focusing on roles in composition, production, and sound engineering.
Hosted by the University of Sussex, in partnership with Sussex Music Hub
