ABSTRACT
However detailed and beautifully presented a school's curriculum plans might be, they will be of no use whatsoever unless they are actually put into practice. Schools, therefore, need to set up monitoring procedures to ensure that this is happening. Too often, headteachers equate monitoring with releasing members of staff to observe each others’ work or enabling a coordinator to demonstrate to others how a particular aspect of a subject can be taught. There is undoubtedly a place for such strategies. However, their effectiveness can be increased if they are put into a wider context. In order to do so, there is a need for a school to know precisely what is being delivered each week; where there is ‘slippage’ in delivery; where adaptations need to be made and how those adaptations can be accommodated, without upsetting the overall plan and reducing it to no more than a paper exercise, to be forgotten once the ‘real’ business of teaching begins. Below we describe one approach that has been used successfully by schools to monitor not only music but also other areas of the curriculum.
