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Music

Since September 2022 we have been following the music scheme 'Kapow,' which gives the children great opportunities for practical music-making, widening their experience of different music genres and learning musical notation for composition. 

Please read the document below to see the progression of skills that we follow across the school from reception to year 6. 

Intent

The intention of our music curriculum is first and foremost to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers and listeners. We introduce children to music from all across the world and across generations, teaching our children to respect and appreciate music of all tradition and communities. 

Children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tunes and untuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music. They will develop an understanding of the history and cultural context if the music they listen to and leaner how music can be written down. Through music, our curriculum helps children develop transferrable 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 curriculum takes a holistic approach to music, in which the individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching music experiences:

  • Performing
  • Listening
  • Composing
  • The history of music
  • The inter-related dimensions of music

Each unit of work combines these strands designed to capture pupil's imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Over the course of the curriculum, children will be taught to sing fluently and expressively, play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control. They will learn to recognise the name of interrelated dimensions of music-pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture and dynamics - and use these to expressively in their own improvisations and compositions. 

It is a spiral curriculum that builds on previous skills and knowledge learnt. Children progress in terms of tackling more complex tasks, as well as developing understanding and knowledge of the history of music, staff, and other musical notations, as well as the interrelated dimensions of music and more. The curriculum is adapted and differentiated to ensure that all pupils access all units and there are planned opportunities to stretch pupils' learning. 

Impact

The impact is constantly monitored through regular and end of until assessments. Knowledge organisers support pupils providing a highly visual record of the key learning from the units, encouraging recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary. 

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 influences by the wider cultural, social and historical contexts in which it is developed.
  • Understand the was 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.