Intent

The intention of the our music scheme is first and foremost to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music. We are passionate about providing children the experience of playing real instruments and performing in front of an audience.

We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers, and listeners. Our curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities.

Children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music. They will develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music that they listen to and learn how music can be written down.

Through music, our curriculum helps children develop transferable skills such as team-working, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and presentation and performance skills. These skills are vital to children’s development as learners and have a wider application in their general lives outside and beyond school.

Implementation

Our Music curriculum takes a holistic approach, in which the individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences:

● Listening and evaluating

● Creating sound

● Notation

● Improvising and composing

● Performing

Each five-lesson unit combines the strands within a cross-curricular topic, designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Children are taught how to sing fluently and expressively, and play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control. They will learn to recognise, demonstrate and name the interrelated dimensions of music - pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture and dynamics - and use these expressively in their own improvisations and compositions.

Our progression of knowledge and skills shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage. We follow a spiral curriculum model, where previous skills and knowledge are returned to and built upon.

In each lesson, pupils will actively participate in musical activities drawn from a range of styles and traditions, developing their musical skills and their understanding of how music works. Children progress in terms of tackling more complex tasks and doing more simple tasks better, as well as developing understanding and knowledge of the history of music, staff, and other musical notations, the interrelated dimensions of music and more.

Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work as well as improvisation and teacher-led performances. Lessons are ‘hands-on’ and incorporate movement and dance elements, as well as making cross curricular links with other areas of learning.

Impact

The impact of our scheme is constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Through the implementation our Music provision, pupils will leave primary school equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and to be able to enjoy and appreciate music throughout their lives.

The impact of following our curriculum is that children will:

• Be confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school.
• Show an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and will understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social, and historical contexts in which it is developed.
• Understand the various ways in which music can be written down to support performing and composing activities.
• Demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and be able to identify their own personal musical preferences.
• Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Music.