Quick Wins – Heads, shoulders, knees and nose – easy assessment

The question of how, when and even if, to assess in the primary music classroom is a hotly debated subject. My own view is, that with only an hour a week (or often less) of teaching per class, I don’t want to waste precious music making time doing formal written assessments. The approach I take is to continually assess the class as a whole, making sure that a skill or concept has been mastered by most before moving on.

One of the ways we do this is multi choice questions disguised as a game.

An example above is from a Year 3 lesson, checking prior learning of simple crotchet and quaver rhythms.

Step 1: Say (using ta, te te notation) and then clap each rhythm as a whole class

Step 2: Class teacher says a rhythm, all children respond by touching head, shoulder, knees or nose. Repeat till all children have chosen.

Step 3: Class teacher claps rhythm, children respond by touching correct body part.

Step 4: Invite individual children who have demonstrated secure knowledge to choose and clap one of the rhythms for rest of the class to guess.

The concept can be adapted as required. For pitch based note reading activities, I would sign and sing the solfa in step two, moving on to playing on piano in step three. As a further extension, I sometimes throw in a phrase that isn’t on the slide and the race is to be the first to throw their arms in the air and shout “Well, that’s not right!

(This obviously came about accidentally the first time and the children enjoyed correcting my mistake so much, I’ve added it in ever since!)

The whole class participation provides a quick visual way of checking if the class as a whole is ready to move on and identifies individual students for whom the concept is not yet secure. It also provides safe opportunities for children to sing on their own in front of their peers. Introducing teams and a competitive element to this step persuades even reluctant singers to stand up and have a go!

And why nose, not toes? In my experience, if you are teaching in a classroom with desks, at least one child per class will manage to bang their head on the desk trying to touch their toes…

Lorna Ridley

Courthouse Junior School