“Music is powerful. As people listen to it, they can be affected. They respond.”

Ray Charles

Intent

At St John the Baptist Primary School, our music curriculum intends to inspire creativity, self-expression and encourages our children on their musical journeys as well as giving them opportunities to connect with others. We hope to foster a life- long love of music by exposing them to diverse musical experiences and igniting a passion for music. By listening and responding to different musical styles, finding their voices as singers and performers and as composers, all will enable them to become confident, reflective musicians.

‘Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity’ (The National Curriculum)

Skills

The aims of our Music curriculum are to develop pupils who:

• Can sing and use their voices individually and in a group
• Create and compose music on their own and with others
• Have opportunities to learn a musical instrument (Y5 and Y6)
• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated
• Listen to, review and evaluate the work of great composers and musicians from a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions
• Enjoy and have an appreciation of a range of different musical styles e.g. Classical, Jazz, Hip Hop, Pop, Rock etc.
• Use and understand musical language and include musical features in their own work
• Make judgements about the quality of music
• Have opportunities to play a variety of instruments
• Have different opportunities to take part in performances

Implementation

The music curriculum ensures students sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in classroom activities as well as weekly singing assemblies, various concerts and performances, the learning of instruments, and the joining of musical ensembles. The elements of music are taught in classroom lessons so that children are able to use the language of music to discuss it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. In the classroom students learn how to play various un-tuned and tuned percussion instruments. In doing so, they understand the different principles of creating notes, as well as how to devise and read their own musical scores and basic music notation. They also learn how to compose focussing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. Composing or performing using body percussion, vocal sounds and technology is also part of the curriculum, which develops the understanding of musical elements without the added complexity of an instrument.

Impact

Whilst in school, children have opportunities to discover areas of strength, as well as areas they might like to improve upon. The integral nature of music and the learner creates an enormously rich palette from which a child may access fundamental abilities such as: achievement, self-confidence, interaction with and awareness of others, and self-reflection. Music will also develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to students individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world. Children are able to enjoy music, in as many ways as they choose - either as listener, creator or performer. They can discuss music and comprehend its parts. They can sing, feel a pulse, add rhythms and create melodies in a group; they can then further develop these skills in the future and continue to enjoy and embrace music in their lives.

How we assess:

Musical teaching and learning is not linear. The strands of musical learning, presented within the lesson plans are part of the learning spiral. Over time, children can both develop new musical skills and concepts, and re-visit established musical skills and concepts. A “plan-do-check-review” approach is used with teachers making judgements against national criteria after each unit of work.