Connecting policy to practice: from work-based learning to negotiated curriculum – a case-study

Abstract

Building on the success of the WBL (work-based learning) MMus (Performance), LCM has been piloting, since September 2016, a blended pathway of undergraduate study for army musicians on the BMus (Hons) Performance course. Although possessing advanced certified skills in musical performance, c. 70% of army musicians are not qualified to degree level. This new blended pathway is intended to give an opportunity for army musicians to engage in personal development as part of the army’s Whole Life Development programme. This paper aims to explore how the army musicians have engaged in a negotiated curriculum, in order to assess the teaching and learning strategies implemented in the design and delivery of the BMus (Hons) Performance, and show how such a negotiated curriculum can help us address some of the issues raised by the TEF and navigate the tensions between the employer-driven, political, social and economic agendas (Usher & Solomon, 1999; Zemblyas, 2006) and a form of higher education which encourages reflection, creativity and innovation (Barnett, 2015; Middlehust, 2015) within the wider context of the emergence of the student-as-consumer and the marketisation of education (Brown, 2013; John & Fanghanel, 2016)