Music is exploring and creating sound

INTENT 

At Dell Primary School our music curriculum is an ambitious, coherent curriculum that equips pupils for future success in regards of a holistic music education. We ensure that all children are entitled to a music education. Our curriculum is coherently planned and sequenced towards building sufficient knowledge and skills for future learning and opportunities for the future.

Our curriculum is tailored to the needs of all pupils. Musical learning is very diverse and we use the national curriculum outcomes to guide us in the choices around the curriculum we have built in our school. We ensure pupils perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the work of great composers and musicians. In addition, pupils learn to sing and to use their voices; create and compose music on their own and with others; have an opportunity to learn a musical instrument; use technology appropriately; understand and explore how music is created and produced. We are aspirational within our expectations of pupils learning within music and ensure that they leave our school with a rounded music education.

Our curriculum aims at fostering a love of music.

By the end of Early Years Foundation Stage, pupils will:

• Sing (and enjoy singing) a range of nursery rhymes
• Be confident exploring making sounds using a range of objects
• Make movements along with music

By the end of Key Stage One, pupils will:

• Be confident using their voices to make chants, sing known songs together and have opportunities to perform as a soloist and in an ensemble
• Play tuned and untuned instruments along to music, using informal symbols as notation
• Listen to music from a range of genres and talk about music using some of the inter-related dimensions of music

By the end of key stage 2 we expect all pupils to:

-be able to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control

- develop and understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory

- play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy

- improvise and compose music for a range of purposes; listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory

- use and understand staff and other musical notations

- appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and great composers and musicians and develop an understanding of history in music.

IMPLEMENTATION

Music is for everyone at Dell. Barries are identified and overcome by adapting each lesson to enable all pupils to access music. This may be through the use of noise reduction headphones, performing in smaller ensemble groups of through the opportunities provided through our extra-curricular programme.

Our curriculum is sequential and structured. To enable us to do this we use the ‘Charanga’ scheme in years 1, 2 and 3 that covers the national curriculum aims Charanga is used as a supplementary tool in Earyl Years Foundation Stage. In years 4, 5 and 6 pupils are taught to use a musical instrument through peripatetic teaching. All year groups receive tailored opportunities to listen, appraise and perform in ensemble groups through our weekly music assemblies. We reiterate that the scheme used is a guide or foundation to ensure the curriculum contains content that has been identified as most useful, and ensured that this content is taught in a logical progression, systematically and explicitly enough for all pupils to acquire the intended knowledge and skills.

Early Years Foundation Stage

Music is explored daily throughout EYFS. Teachers plan themed areas and provide access to musical activities which are explored by all pupils through play. Opportunities to sing nursery rhymes, sing with simple melodies, in time are modelled by teachers and are discretely included into daily practice. For example, singing the good afternoon song before home time.

Key Stage 1

In Years 1,2 and 3, pupils are taught weekly lessons supported through the use of a spiral scheme. Pupils are given the opportunity to listen, appraise, practice and perform in every lesson and pupils have access to tuned and untuned percussion instruments to support the development of their musical interests and skills. Being spiral in nature, prior content is regularly revisited and each lesson builds on to one another to build competence in skill over time. All pupils attend a weekly music assembly which is structured to explore different styles of music and study musical artists- leading to regular performing opportunities in front of an audience of peers.

Key Stage 2

In Years 4,5 and 6, pupils receive a weekly lesson taught by expert musicians provided by the Suffolk County Music Service. Lessons are designed to enable pupils to play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts for extended periods of time. Pupils are expected to use their voices and to play musical instruments with increasing accuracy as well as improvise and compose music for a range of purposes. The use of musical notation is taught systematically to build upon prior knowledge of non- standard musical notation to develop pupil’s musical knowledge and skills. All pupils attend a music assembly which is focused on exploring musical genres including 20^th century popular music. Pupils are encourage to form ensemble groups to perform during the weekly assembly.

All lessons will involve musical vocabulary (based on the vocabulary progression document); conversations and discussions around key ideas; children applying their knowledge and skills in context.

IMPACT

Through our music curriculum children will:

• be engaged and challenged
• access opportunities to perform in front of an audience
• make good and better progress from their starting points
• know about different genres of music and name influential musical artists and composers
• Play a musical instrument with developing fluency
• through discussion and feedback, talk enthusiastically about Music

This will be assessed and monitored by:

• Lesson Observations and learning walks
• Teacher assessment through videoing pupil’s musical performance
• The gathering of pupil voice
• Evaluation of Teacher’s use of music tracking documents