AQA A-Level Music: Aiming for A/A* in the Listening Paper

Course Code: T0310 £289.00

ABOUT THIS COURSE

This course, new for 2025, will demonstrate how to guide your best students to achieve Grades A & A* in future AQA A-level Music Appraising examinations. The course will explore the characteristics of A/A* students identified in research and why and how we must challenge our most able Music students. Led by our highly respected and successful course leader, Sarah Murphy, the course will demonstrate teaching and learning methods, approaches and strategies for Appraising which will stretch and challenge able students and develop their high-level skills. Appraising is a vibrant, dynamic and exciting area of study in which students should enjoy their learning and make rapid progress; this course will demonstrate to teachers how to get this across to students, enrich and enhance their learning to maintain high standards. Using feedback from the most recent exams, the course will outline what is expected of high ability students and explore ways in which to build learning and teaching practice around this. Teachers following other exam boards are welcome to attend, regardless of exam board, although the examples referred to and discussed in the course will be AQA specific.

BENEFITS OF ATTENDING

  • Gain insight into how to bring the dynamism, excitement and stimulation of Appraising study into your lessons, including historical, social and cultural context wider perspectives
  • Increase awareness of what teachers should aim to achieve with the most able musicians
  • Focus on the demands for achieving A/A* in the Appraising exam
  • Develop greater understanding of the depth and detail that examiners are looking for in A/A* candidates
  • Take away a range of high-quality, top-level teaching approaches, methods and strategies to stretch able students in Listening and Appraising
  • A detailed look at the different types of questions in and use these to plan, enrich and adapt your A level curriculum
  • The ‘wider’ curriculum – ensure your ‘wider’ curriculum enhances student learning and achievement in the Appraising paper

PROGRAMME

10.00am – 10.45am: What is Involved to Attain Grades A/A* on the Appraisal Paper?

  • Feedback, key messages and grading analysis from the 2023 and 2024 Appraising papers – what is required to achieve A/A*?
  • Which are the areas that students most struggle with?
  • Grades A and A* - what are the differences between these?
  • Key attributes of Grade A/A* students in the classroom
  • Avoiding potential hazards: what can cost a top student their A/A* grade?

Break

10.45am

11.00-12.00pm: Tackling the Short Listening Questions – Exploring the Skillset Required for Success

  • Developing skills for aural dictation – strategies to build student confidence and accuracy
  • Understanding harmony – approaches to building harmonic vocabulary
  • Guiding students in building confidence in their technical vocabulary and applying it in their listening and score-based analysis
  • Creating contextual appreciation – building a wider repertoire of listening based around Area of Study 1 to help students create links and connections 

12.00 – 1.00pm: Preparing Students for the Unfamiliar Listening Questions: Key Challenges for A/A* students

  • Ensuring the quality of able students appraising knowledge, understanding and skills is excellent
  • Analysing the unfamiliar extract questions: where is an A/A* achieved or lost?
  • Instilling in students’ confidence, interest, enthusiasm to analyse in depth musical extracts and enjoy making effective use of their learning
  • Building analysis and evaluation skills to appropriately respond to the questions
  • Ways to help able students demonstrate knowledge and understanding of musical elements and language to make high quality critical judgements
  • Tackling the toughest ‘unfamiliar’ questions – developing the skills needed to unpick tough analysis
  • Looking at student A/A* responses and comparing it to student Grade B response
  • Using higher order thinking to stretch and challenge intellectual curiosity, and go beyond the confines of the listening paper

1.00 – 2.00pm: LUNCH

2.00 – 3.00pm: Teaching Analysis Section B: Stretching and Challenging Able Students

  • Supporting Grade A/A* students to write top level analytical responses
  • What are the main barriers to for Grade A/A* students? How to avoid dropping marks.
  • Exploring top-level, high-quality responses
  • Activating prior knowledge to improve retention of key focus points

3.00– 3.15pm: Break

3.15 – 4.15pm The Section C Essay: Key Challenges for A/A* Students

  • Focus on the 30 marks – what does an A/A* candidate need to do to attain excellence?
  • Deconstructing essay questions; exploring example responses
  • Varying your feedback approaches and strategies
  • Different approaches to discussing and writing about different types of musical styles
  • Working collaboratively to rehearse key examination skills for the essay

4.15pm: Depart

A-Level - Code: T0310

AQA A-Level Music: Aiming for A/A* in the Listening Paper

COURSE LEADER

Sarah Murphy is currently a teacher of academic music at Chetham’s School of Music, where she works with A level students teaching harmony, composition and analysis. She is also responsible for preparing A level students for Oxbridge interviews and for higher level study in the form of the AMusTCL examination. In addition to her Chetham’s teaching, Sarah also works with international students at the RNCM and has designed a pre-sessional musicology programme for overseas undergraduates and postgraduates there. She also teaches piano and analysis on the Chetham’s International Summer School for Pianists and has led teacher training sessions in theory and harmony as part of this.

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