ABRSM Teacher Development

Curriculum & Lesson Planning

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The importance of the

first two minutes of a lesson
It’s important to consider what we might face when our pupil arrives at our lesson.
They might be really excited to show what they’ve been working on, but a lot
might have happened in the week between your lessons.
A pupil at school is likely to have had at least 25 It’s important to listen and avoid assumptions,
lessons between the time when they last saw you and being careful how we respond if a pupil
and the time when they arrive for their lesson. expresses some anxiety or some things that have
It’s likely that a maximum of one of those lessons been troubling them in the week gone by. You
might have been music. There’s an awful lot going want to be setting a pupil up for success in every
on outside of your music room in their classroom. lesson. That means facilitating success, allowing
The pupil will have had lots of homework, they a pupil to be successful, allowing them to show
might have assessments and tests in school or they the best of themselves. Once we’ve done that
might have had really important exams that really and we’ve created a chance for the pupil to show
affect their future and those things can cause a lot off something they can do really well, it allows us
of stress. They will have had lots of play times and to give them praise and that is so important for
lunch times and lots going on socially and that can motivation, no matter how the pupil arrives to the
really affect the way they’re feeling. There could be lesson. Praising a pupil really early in the lesson
things happening at home with friends and family can be incredibly valuable and it means the pupil
and those things can have an impact on a young is feeling robust enough to take the criticisms that
person or an adult. might follow later in the lesson, which ultimately
allows them to make really good progress.
You can’t necessarily tell by looking at the pupils or
hearing what they have to say in the first moments
of the lesson, how they’re feeling or what might
have happened in between your lessons.
Here is an analogy of two bottles of fizzy drinks.
One has been carefully looked after and the other
might has been dropped on the ground and kicked
around. To look at those two bottles you might not
be able to tell the difference, but how you open
them would be very different.
So, how can we prepare? Have some stability,
expectations, and routines, so that the pupil knows
exactly what they’re going to be expected to do
when they arrive at your lesson. That’s really
important to make pupil feel safe. That doesn’t
necessarily mean doing exactly the same thing in the
first two minutes of every lesson, but at least having
some understood expectations, some routines can
make a pupil feel really safe and comfortable.
When a pupil says they can’t do something,
‘I can’t do so-and-so’ adding the word ‘yet’ at
the end of it really changes the whole meaning,
atmosphere and it can be really motivating;
‘I can’t play this scale yet.’
Sometimes pupils might arrive feeling anxious,
and eavesdropping can be a really good way
of assessing where that pupil is without the
pressure. In other words, when they don’t know
that we’re listening and they don’t know that we’re
necessarily assessing their progress.
Progress doesn’t just go up steadily. It might be
that a pupil’s made really good progress. If they
have, the next stage might be to increase the level
of challenge, for example, play at a faster tempo.
This can mean that the pupil suddenly could feel
like they haven’t made progress at all, the level
of challenge has increased and their skills aren’t
quite up to it. Remember that progress does tend
to go in a state of flux, it can go in a state of flow.
Pupils might feel like they’re doing really well and
then feel like they go backwards a bit, but that’s
just a really important element of getting better at
something.
Think about the skills that the pupil needs to gain,
rather than what they need to do in the lesson.
In other words, what do they need to be able to
do by the end of the lesson, rather than what
they are going to do in the lesson. This will focus
your mind on how to structure the lesson. Think
‘I want the pupil to do this’, that will be the end
of your analysis. Whereas, think ‘I want the pupil
to be able to’, and in other words, they’re able to
replicate that outside of the lesson, they’re able to
do that on their own, they’re able to do that in an
exam, that really changes the way you will plan
the next steps of the lesson. You will be able to
break down that skill, thinking about what are the
steps that we might need to go through in order to
get there.
So in terms of what we might actually do in the
first two minutes of the lesson, you could start
with a ‘starter’. That means a short activity,
possibly separate to what’s about to follow in the
lesson, which energises the pupil. Keep it musical,
and start as you mean to go on.

Supporting the teaching and learning of music

in partnership with the Royal Schools of Music
Royal Academy of Music | Royal College of Music
Royal Northern College of Music | Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
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