Elemental for Eduqas Music A Level

While Elemental is most widely used by schools supporting their students at KS4, it was at A level that I saw the clearest effect with my own students in their written papers. Since those papers, in summer 2025, the platform has expanded and you can now support your A level students using Elemental in the following ways, to be expanded on below:

1. Developing 'elements' type listening for questions 1/2, 3/4 and 8.
2. Developing the foundations of good dictation for question 11 and practising exam format examples.
3. Gaining a clear aural and analytical knowledge of the WCT set works to prepare for questions 12 or 13.
4. And, by Christmas, the same as 3) but for the 20th-century set works.

Developing 'elements' type listening for questions 1/2, 3/4 and 8

The Eduqas written papers open with a series of questions that are linked to Areas of Study. The most important factor in a student's success is, however, their broad ability to analyse music by ear. This is most true for Rock and Pop and Musical Theatre, with Jazz having a greater amount of genre-specific language.

A good example is 2024 question 2 a.

The broad foundation of good listening needed here is covered in Elemental as follows:

Developing the foundations of good dictation for question 11 and practising exam-format examples.

At Eduqas A level, it is first of all important that the rhythm is correct, given the way that credit is allocated.

Elemental builds up aural competence for dictation with two principles in mind:

i) isolate and develop the component parts of good dictation (e.g. being certain about the shape).

ii) practise once a week in class and once a week outside class.

An example component is our feature for performing rhythm for homework. The student's phone/computer will listen to their clapping.

Being able to do this accurately is one good way in to developing the link between sound and symbol needed for accurate rhythmic dictation. Elemental also marks the clapping with feedback on pulse, showing in this example that the student was a little slow.

Elemental's worksheets then include a large amount of exam-format dictation with rhythm, pitch and full melody so that students can practice the two key components as well as the combined whole.

Gaining a clear aural and analytical knowledge of the WCT set works to prepare for questions 12 or 13.

The latest of our additions is score analysis practice for Haydn 104 as well as the new Haydn 100 and Schubert 5 set works.

For those students who have a strong grasp of how to approach score analysis, questions 12/13 can provide some of the more reliably accessible marks across the paper. It is, however, quite hard to revise due to the need, ideally, to have:

• A score
• Playing
• With lots of questions on pertinent moments

This is not something I've been able to find, but it is something I've always wanted to have access to. Without all three, my experience has been that the revision can be quite dry and unmusical. Here's an example of a question on the structure of the second movement of Haydn 100:

Elemental splits the questions for the new set works into structure, melody, texture and harmony/tonality. Each movement has hundreds of questions in total, and the combination of score, sound and question gives them a route to engaging with the content in a way that supports exam success, but does so musically.

The 20th-century set works are in production and will be published later in the year.