AQA AS and A Level Music 80 MINUTE VIDEO GUIDE to the entire course and to Independent Learning

Put simply: if you teach AQA A-Level Music (new specification 2016+), then this is the best £9 you will ever spend. Yes, there are a couple of things that are specific to my school in terms of its policies on how, when, and who decides when a student is AS or A Level, and a couple of things specific to my own department policies, but that does not detract from what this is: a fully comprehensive guide to the requirements of the AQA AS and A Level Music courses, as interpreted by an experienced Head of Music.

I have always used such a video (this one was only made last year, 2016, for the new specification), but it has been shared to the school’s Google Classroom and Moodle for both students and parents to view at their leisure. There is not a single student or parent who could say ‘I didn’t know about that’.

This video covers: the differences between AS and A Level Music in terms of both content, weightings, and standards for each of the 3 elements of the course; the set works, including a decent amount of background teaching to the various composers and genres listed; a guide to learning independently - from how to take notes in class, to how to share information with other students, produce detailed notes, and expand those notes through a series of low, medium, and high-level questions (all explained on the video). This insight into ‘how’ to learn at VI Form was actually taken up as a whole-school model for my school by the SLT. Students do not necessarily know ‘how’ to conduct the necessary independent research outside of the classroom - this video dedicates at least 25 minutes to just that. Don’t forget it also instructs parents how to assist, and as it comes with a Site License option, should you take that up, you are free to put this on your own school e-learning platform so that your students and parents may benefit as much as mine. I have even used this video for staff training, with great feedback.

You will need to provide the students with print-outs of the AQA Specs which are referred to in the video - I wouldn’t include those PDFs here in case it looks like I am selling the specs! The PDF resources included in this are referred to in the video and are to do with the independent learning. I hope that you get as much benefit from this video in your school as I do in mine. Thank you for buying Rainy Night Music.