There’s a beautiful challenge underway at Rhinegold Education. The ‘reformed’ GCSEs, AS Levels and A Levels that Michael Gove set in motion will be ready for first teaching from September 2016. Whatever board they use, music teachers will be faced with brand-new, fully-linear syllabuses that are driven by a firm ideology. The new GCSE courses now have, in Gove’s words, ‘higher expectations’, and the new A Level courses are to be geared towards ‘general skills’, in order to best prepare students for degree-level study.
One change that made headlines was the introduction of a compulsory area of study at all levels that uses music from the Western classical tradition. Another controversial element has been the commitment at GCSE level to assess the reading and writing of staff notation. Perhaps the most visible change of all will be a totally new grade structure at GCSE, in which the numbers 9 to 1 will replace the current A* to G system.
Rhinegold Education is in close contact with the major boards as they formulate their specifications, and what we’re seeing are balanced qualifications that will make full use of modern teaching methods and technological innovations in music software.
With so many new challenges on the cards, we have embarked on a major consultation with a large panel of teachers to find out exactly what you need, what you don’t need, and how you want to access your resources. We feel that we have a golden opportunity to tailor a raft of new resources to the needs of the modern classroom, and are rebuilding our catalogue from the ground up so that we can offer the best support for pupils and teachers alike.
Imagine that you could send your pupils home with a URL where they could login, complete a practice listening test written by an examiner, and click to have the results emailed to you. This is just one part of a new online service that we’re developing in association with MusicFirst. More details will be announced in early 2016, but for now, here’s some of what you can expect from us in 2016:
- Full coverage for Music GCSE, AS Level and A Level for the following boards:
- Edexcel
- AQA
- OCR
- Student-facing study guides, listening tests and revision guides available in print, online and offline
- Comprehensive online bank of board-specific teacher resources
- Online practice tests
- New theory resources to prepare for the increased demands at all levels
Register for updates on our 2016 study materials at rhinegoldeducation@musicsales.co.uk’