Programme music: a project based on Saint-Saën's Danse macabre

Descriptive music is a bit of an old chestnut for KS3, and while its appeal is clear, it is all too easy to fall into a trap of open-ended oversimplification e.g. ‘go away and make something up to describe a haunted house’. Used effectively, it can be a way of bringing ‘meaty’, compositional devices centre stage in a really practical and immediate way.