Music

Why you teach it - your purpose of study.

Music is a unique way of communicating that can inspire and motivate children. It is a vehicle for personal expression, and it can bring enjoyment and fulfilment throughout life. It is important to provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop their skills, to appreciate a wide variety of music and to begin to make judgements about the quality of music.

Aims

-To encourage all children to listen to and take part in music making with enjoyment.

-To help children to use music as a medium for the expression of his/ her own ideas and feelings.

-To develop self-confidence and a sense of achievement whilst engaged in musical activities.

-To help all children extend their knowledge and to develop their own awareness and understanding of music from a wide variety of traditions, styles, cultures, and places.

-To develop social skills and awareness through group music making.

-To provide first-hand experience of the inter-related dimensions of music (Pulse, Rhythm, Pitch, Dynamics, Tempo, Timbre, Structure, Texture, Notation)

-To develop the interrelated skills of composition, performance, and appreciation.

-To introduce children to musical notation (graphic symbols and staff notation where appropriate)

-To make music education fully inclusive including for children in low-income families and those with SEND,

INTENT

What you teach - your programme(s) of study

The fundamental skills, knowledge and concepts that are taught are set out in ‘Music: The National Curriculum for England’.

The programme of study contains two sets of requirements:

                -Knowledge, skills and understanding

                -Breadth of study

Statutory requirements from The Nation Plan for Music (2022) form the basis of the music curriculum.

The ‘Model Music Curriculum’ (2021) is used, with a spiraling progression of Singing, Listening, Composing, Performing and Musicianship in place for each year group every half term.

IMPLEMENTATION

How you teach it - your delivery of the above

In both key stages, music is taught by a specialist teacher as a one-hour lesson every fortnight. A variety of teaching and learning strategies are used, depending on the age and ability of the pupils, individual needs, and the purpose of the lesson. Activities may be teacher led or open-ended and differentiated by task or outcome. Opportunities are offered to all pupils to compose and perform with a mix of rhythmic and melodic instruments, alongside listening to and appraising music from a variety of traditions, styles, and cultures.

All key-stage two classes have a whole class keyboard lesson as part of their curriculum music time for half a term twice a year.

The love and enjoyment of music continues outside of curriculum lessons. Pupils sing hymns in our collective worship, take part in a weekly ‘Hymn Worship’ and listen to reflective music at the beginning and end of each worship.

Private instrumental tuition is offered by two peripatetic companies, giving children the opportunity to learn to play piano, guitar, violin, flute, clarinet, trumpet, cornet, and saxophone. Lessons are during school hours and paid for by parents or through the Pupil Premium budget to give all children access to learning a musical instrument.

There is a school orchestra for Key-Stage two pupils that meets on a Friday morning before school. This gives pupils the opportunity to play as part of a large group, extend their musical skills by playing a variety of music and to perform to the whole school, parents and play as part of our weekly Celebration Worship.

Pupils who want to sing and perform can join ‘Music Club’ which meets after school on Wednesdays. The choir performs out in the community throughout the year, but particularly at Christmas. Every summer term, there is a musical performance that members of Music Club rehearse for and perform to a large audience. This develops a love of singing and performing as well as increasing pupils’ confidence and self-esteem.

IMPACT

So what - your evaluations of the above

Music forms part of the school curriculum policy to provide a broad and balanced education to all children. Through our music teaching, we provide learning opportunities that enable all pupils to make good progress. We strive hard to meet the needs of those pupils with special educational needs, those with disabilities, those with special gifts and talents, and those learning English as a second language. We take all reasonable steps to achieve this aim. 

Children demonstrate their ability in music in a variety of different ways. Assessment of pupils’ achievement in music is made by informal judgements as they are observed during lessons and videos/ audio tracks of pupils’ compositions and performances which are taken each half term and kept as evidence of progression. Pupils are also encouraged to make judgements about how they can improve their own work. Written work of compositions and use of notation is assessed each half-term to inform judgment of progress and future planning.  At the end of each half-term, an informal assessment is made on Classroom Monitor, as to which learning objectives have been achieved and which need further re-enforcement. These judgements are used as a record of achievement and to inform future planning.