Student Background Project

Student A is an exemplary member of the program here at John Champe. This is

Student A’s first year at Champe, as they have transferred from another school in the district.

Student A is a french horn player, out of the four concert bands they are placed in the second to

lowest band. They should be placed in the top band, as the student made the district band and

is performing at the level of the other members of the top band, however they did not have the

opportunity to audition for it since they transferred this year.

Due to the fact that Student A began a year at a new school entirely virtual, they have

not had a chance to get to know the other students in the band. From the first few rehearsals of

spring marching band that I’ve observed, I can tell that the in-person environment is where they

thrive. When they offered to help the drum majors at the end of rehearsal put podiums away,

they said “I don’t know anyone here so I might as well get on everyone’s good side.”

Student A is a hybrid student, meaning they come to school two days a week and are

virtual the other two days. They participate in person as well as in the virtual setting consistently.

Student A turns in their work on time and it is always of high quality. They are truly an exemplary

student in the program.

When lesson planning for this ensemble, I will be sure to include opportunities for

students that are excelling to continue to challenge themselves without pushing the other

students too far. Warm-ups are a great opportunity for me to do wind material forward. Using the

warm-up video that we play every class, I can encourage students to play the lip slurs and

chromatic scales sections twice as fast. I can also encourage students to take certain sections

up the octave if they are comfortable in the lower range on their instrument.

Student B is a freshman tenor saxophone player in the lowest band at Champe. They

have an IEP, however based off of recent IEP meetings, and his progression in his classes, they

will soon no longer have services available to help him and will no longer have an IEP. They are

technically a hybrid student, but have only been joining class online for the past few weeks and
have not shown up in person since my first day at Champe. They usually do not participate

when in the online format at all.

They complete their formative assignments relatively consistently, but the summative

assignments, which count the most towards their grade, they do not do. Due to this they are

currently failing band class. The formative assignments are created on a website called “Sight

Reading Factory” which generates excerpts at varying levels for students to play in one take

and submit for a grade. When they complete them, they select the option that is “rhythm only”

and have never done the complete sight readings. We’ve told them multiple times to select the

tenor saxophone version, yet they still continue to submit the “rhythm only” excerpts. The

directors and I are skeptical that they are still not comfortable with reading music and do not

actively try to improve at it, which is causing him to continue to choose the “rhythm only”

options.

When I begin teaching the students in Concert I (the youngest band), I will need to

actively wind material back in hopes that we can get Student B on track to be successful in their

band career. I will be sure when reading through things together in class to go over reading

notes, and various fingerings for each instrument in hopes that they will be able to catch up to

the rest of the class. Assuming Student B becomes more comfortable with reading music, I

would expect them to start doing the correct assignments and submitting the assignments that

are weighted more heavily, and hopefully be able to turn their grade around.