Maestro Textbook & Composition Portfolio

Maestro is an innovative three-year package containing everything you need to teach Junior Cycle Music in line with the specification. Maestro follows a spiral approach, where students will meet and revisit Learning Outcomes on an ongoing basis. This will help to develop and embed their understanding and skills all through the three years of Junior Cycle.

Key Features of Maestro

• Learning Outcomes have been carefully selected and grouped together in chapters. Chapters have then been grouped into units of learning. This reflects the approach recommended by the specification.
• Content is presented in a well-paced and structured sequence. Clear, simple language is used throughout.
• Prior learning, learning intentions and Prelude activities at the start of each chapter get students thinking about the chapter topic in an active way.
• Keywords are clearly marked and defined in the text, which helps to develop students’ Music literacy. Keywords are also listed at the end of each chapter to help with revision.
• Listen, Perform, Compose and Explore activities appear in each chapter so that students can put their learning into action. These individual, pair- or group-work learning experiences are based on the three elements of Creating and Exploring, Participating and Music-Making, and Appraising and Responding.
• Tracks and Links are clearly marked to let students know when they need to listen to one of the many pieces of music on the app or online. These musical examples appear throughout the textbook from Chapter 1.
• Students are introduced to body percussion, the voice, the recorder and the ukulele as performance tools.
• Face the Music questions, Finale activities, Self-assessment checklists and Learning Reflection questions at the end of each chapter allow students to monitor their progress and manage their own learning.

Composition Portfolio

The Composition Portfolio is a write-in book where students can create and store their original musical compositions. This will help them to prepare for Classroom-Based Assessment 1 in a carefully scaffolded way.

Maestro app

The Maestro app is available on- and offline across major operating systems. It is packed with over 200 musical examples from many genres for use in activities and to illustrate different aspects of music theory.