Music

Intent:

Our vision is that all children will engage in a musical curriculum that develops their learning and results in children having improved wellbeing, benefiting the development of their cognitive skills, and supporting their needs in literacy, numeracy, listening and responding. 

“Music has the power of forming character and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young”.

Aristotle

The national curriculum for Music aims to ensure that all pupils are taught to; 

• Use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants ad rhymes 

• Play tuned and untuned instruments musically 

• Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music 

• Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the interrelated dimensions of music.

Implementation:

All children will have access to a clear and comprehensive 30-minute music lesson per week. They will all have access to ongoing singing practices weekly as a class or whole school.

Children in reception have access to a range of percussion instruments which they can self-select encouraging them to explore and create signs during free play activities.

All children have regular opportunities for developing their singing voices during assembly. They also have available times throughout each term to perform to an audience; class assemblies, harvest service, Christmas nativities and carol singing, Easter performances, end of term and special occasion celebrations. 

The music lead also offers ideas for standalone lessons related to our topic eg; BBC Teach Jack and the Beanstalk from our growing topic and traditional tales, Music and movement for EYFS, rain and thunder, orchestra music time to align with our nursery rhymes and weather topic.

Progression across year groups: 

Charanga has an in-built progress and knowledge organiser for all year groups, link is available via the music section of our school website.

The year is split into 5 units. Each unit follows the same main areas, of listening, musical activities and perform and share. Through each of these areas children are taught about beats, pulses, rhythms, musical notes, pitch and tone.  

Each unit progresses the children further along to develop their understanding by asking them to do more within the lesson. The end of unit performances from unit’s 1-5 show progress of the children’s knowledge understanding and enjoyment. 

Each child is also targeted with direct questioning about musical vocabulary and they also have opportunities to feed back their own evaluation. 

Impact: 

The Charanga scheme of work enables all pupils to progress rapidly, to know more about music and to build their skills using percussion instruments, their bodies and voices. 
In addition to these lessons, children listen to classical music each week, as part of our cultural capital provision. 

Children are all capable of accessing confidence to performance to an audience in and out of school. They feel that the musical instruments are to enjoy and to enhance their lessons.