On Monday and Tuesday July 4 and 5,1994, a national conference was held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, concurrently with the annual National Festival of Music for Youth. Organised jointly by Music for Youth and the newly renamed Music Education Council, and supported by the Times Educational Supplement, it aimed to address questions of support and provision for music education and the maintenance of quality in music education in the light of changing national structural and funding circumstances in the UK. This report outlines the platform speakers' contributions in precis form, together with an overview of the emerging themes and issues identified during both presentations and question/discussion sessions.

During the academic year 1992–93 HM Inspectors of Schools (HMI) inspected 1208 class music lessons in maintained schools in England. These included almost 400 lessons attended by pupils in their first, third or seventh year of statutory schooling, that is pupils to whom the National Curriculum applies. HMI found a wide range in the quality of the practice in both primary and secondary schools. However, the proportion of lessons which HMI judged to be satisfactory or better in at least one of three important dimensions was substantially higher in primary schools. Primary class teachers often under-rated the quality of their music teaching. Some principles for developing good practice were identified.

Music curriculum courses for generalist primary and early childhood teacher education students have tended traditionally to be heavily skill-intensive and instruction-based and reflective of the pedagogical methods of prominent music educators. In such learning experiences emphasis is generally placed upon the acquisition of skills dealing with notational and historical precedents and the development of some expertise in the areas of singing, playing and listening. Whilst these experiences provide students with valuable insights into traditional music education pedagogy, students who have a limited formal knowledge of music and who do not consider themselves to be musically articulate or literate frequently find such experiences alienating. Furthermore the teaching practices modelled through such programs tend to conflict with those advocated in other curriculum areas.

In an attempt to redress this situation an action research study was undertaken in which compulsory music curriculum units for generalist primary and early childhood teacher education students were re-developed to place compositional experience at the heart of the music education enterprise. In developing a theoretical and philosophical base for the pre-service music education units a number of educational strategies common in other curriculum areas were examined and adapted for use in the music education classroom.

Qualitative evaluation of the units has indicated that participating students whilst developing skills and knowledge in music and understanding of a range of teaching and learning strategies also perceive themselves to be more capable and confident as musicians.

The perceived benefits of graded examinations are compared with the actual benefits that they bring and are then weighed against the more general and widely accepted desirable outcomes of musical education in Great Britain. The syllabus of a typical graded examination is analysed in some detail and the conclusions drawn suggest that the time-honoured format of graded examinations serves only some of the musical needs of pupils. Some radical suggestions for up-dating examinations are discussed.

This article is based on some of the materials prepared for the certificate course: Music Teaching in Private Practice to be mounted by the University of Reading Department of Arts and Humanities in Education in collaboration with the Incorporated Society of Musicians.

This article reports an exploratory study into applied music teaching at a tertiary level. The study was staged as a case study where the case comprises one performance lecturer of clarinet and eight of her students. The focus of the study is how a performance teacher with no formal teacher training fares in the training of musical performers, how students respond, and what are the particular successful or unsuccessful issues in ‘commonsense teaching’. The data were gathered through participant observation and questionnaires. The findings suggest that the distinction between the role of the pedagogue (skilled in the dynamics and principles of teaching and learning) and the role of the expert performer (skilled mainly in the domain of performance) is an essential distinction to make. However, it is also a distinction that traditional performance teaching at a tertiary level seldom makes. The article concludes by tentatively proposing some pedagogical considerations for applied music teaching, as drawn from the case study.

The image of change, as witnessed in the process of metamorphosis, emphasises the importance of an approach to music education which is not confined to the development of skills without placing these in the context of a holistic creative framework. The theme of structuring a music education curriculum within such a creative framework is not new; however, while national and more local directives on education (in Britain and abroad) continue to emphasise a ‘knowledge-skills’ basis to learning, it remains necessary to draw attention to the long-term purpose of education and the position of knowledge and skills within an individual's understanding and creative development. The issue explored in this article is not one of ‘either/or’, but rather that of perception and emphasis.

Structurally the article reflects the development of a butterfly, with an increasing emphasis on creativity towards the final section of the paper. In addition the rondo structure of Smetana's Vltava contributes to the structural framework of the article – broadly in terms of the progress of a river from source to end, as well as at the particular level: for example, in the area of duality and balance of such elements as the cold and warm streams, and the two main scenes (day and night) through which the river passes. In this article, the two concepts of creativity and integration are combined within a creative structure, just as the elements of Smetana's composition are imaginatively and creatively integrated. The sub-title of the article places the themes of creativity and integration within a European framework, where ongoing attempts at political, economic and social bonding are reflected in the need to establish a currency of educational approaches to enable professional interaction and mobility to develop.