In 2001, the government in England pledged in the white paper Schools Achieving Success that all primary school pupils who wanted to should have the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument. The research reported here aimed to establish what contributed to the success of the implementation of this policy. The findings showed that success…

This paper is based on the data collected from a longitudinal study of seven maintained, secondary schools in England that have adopted Musical Futures as an approach to teaching music. The research had a particular focus on key stage 3 (11-14). For the purposes of this paper, data gained from 18 music staff and 325 student interview…

There has been considerable research considering how instrumental practice changes as expertise develops. Much of that research has been relatively small scale and restricted in the range of instrumentalists included. This paper aimed to explore the development of practising strategies and motivation to practise as expertise develops with a large…

In England, there have been concerns that some primary teachers lack the necessary skills to teach the National Curriculum. The aim of this research was to ascertain the level of confidence of students completing a one-year primary teacher-training programme in relation to teaching in general and teaching music in particular. 341 students from…

Historically, there have been differences in the musical instruments played by boys and girls, with girls preferring smaller, higher-pitched instruments. This article explores whether these gender preferences have continued at a time when there is greater gender equality in most aspects of life in the UK. Data were collected from the 150 Music…