Witton Park Academy
School Music Lessons in action with Gigajam
Gigajam school music lessons have been popular in the UK, Netherlands, Australia for the last 10 years. More recently Gigajam has been expanding into schools in Ireland, Spain and the Middle and Far East. We are providing more secondary classroom teachers with the chance to be able to offer Whole Class Instrumental Tuition.
Secondary Music teachers often ask for examples of school music lessons with Gigajam. School clients have kindly produced studies for us, showing the varied ways they use our online music school. We have reproduced this study in a simple ebook so it is easy to download and view at your convenience. Just download from here
Students at Witton Park have uploaded over 12,000 exercises since they begun using Gigajam and the use is going from strength to strength. Currently the use is exclusively for keyboard lessons. All students get the opportunity to learn a musical instrument in and out of school using Gigajam’s online music school. Harnessing technology enables their classroom teacher to be able to offer whole class instrumental tuition in the curriculum as part of school music lessons. These keyboard lessons ensure that students have the skills to articulate their musical ideas in their school music lessons.
Case Study
Ethan Whittaker is the subject leader for music at Witton Park Academy an average sized secondary school in Blackburn with just under 1,000 students. He is also the Secondary representative for the Blackburn with Darwen Music Hub.
Blackburn with Darwen Music Hub has a partnership agreement with Gigajam. This provides the opportunity for every child in Blackburn with Darwen to have access FREE either through school, through a community organisation or independently. The current licence runs until April 2018 and Witton Park Academy is the lead school.
Ethan kindly shared his experience, thoughts and use of Gigajam by making this short video.
How we use Gigajam
“We have been using Gigajam at Witton Park Academy since September 2015. Since then we have seen greater participation in music in extra curriculum activities and in the classroom.
We mainly use Gigajam in Key Stage 3 in years 7, 8 and 9 and use it for the performance side. Gigajam has enabled our kids to see where they are at in real time. They have been able to make progress and reflect on what they have done to be able to improve.
Pupils work on the keyboard towards their debut grade exam. They upload their work and reflect and improve it after analysing. This gives them something to work towards that includes an achievable target for the end of year.
We have also found that pupils who use Gigajam become more musically aware, being able to adapt to different scenarios and situations.
Gigajam is also used for intervention, especially for pupils who find concentrating difficult or who may suffer from behavioural issues. Gigajam gives them a clear focus and something to work towards.These pupils often channel their energy into improving. They become better musicians and individuals which helps them progress and integrate more into school.
In our video we have a year 7 class using Gigajam. I see my role, while the pupils are using Gigajam, is to make sure they are using correct instrumental technique and make sure they are doing everything to the best of their ability. I help them analyse what they have done and how they can improve.
We have found that pupils are working better together using Gigajam, communicating and being really supportive of each other. They are helping each other analyse their work, counting the beats and when to play the notes. They also remind each other to use the correct instrumental technique which is really rewarding to see when walking round the classroom.
Pupils work really hard to get the best possible mark. The grading system encourages students to get above 65% and is really useful. Pupils see this as internal competition, trying to beat the pupils immediately around them and others in the class.
Not having paper, is so much more efficient. All the information from the exercises are all in one place. The pupils can upload their exercises to Gigajam so is all there in one place making it simple for everybody.
This is the second year of using Gigajam at Witton Park Academy and it is going really well, with the pupils responding to it very positively. I couldn’t ask for much more.
If you would like more information about our use of Gigajam at Witton Park then please do not hesitate to email me: ewhittaker@wittonpark.org.uk“
Want to know more?
Free Trial
You can register for your free trial now and get instant access. There are guitar lessons, bass lessons, keyboard lessons and drum lessons available to try and you can download our interactive software freely as well. Register for free at Gigajam VLE
Contact Us
If you want to discuss Gigajam’s school music lessons, the please do not hesitate to get in touch. We’d be delighted to hear from you and talk with you about your thoughts for implementing Gigajam at your school.
Telephone +44(0) 1494 534880 | +(0)7976 208859 or Email brian.greene@gigajam.com
