Music

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.”

Plato.

At Crowton C.E Primary School, we use Charanga to support our music teaching. Our music curriculum ensures pupils can create their own music, sing, listen, play, and perform. This is embedded into daily classroom activities, weekly specific music lessons, weekly singing worship, regular concerts and performances and the learning of instruments.

Charanga works seamlessly with the National Curriculum ensuring that learners revisit the interrelated dimensions of music: pulse, voice, pitch and rhythm- building upon previous learning and skills. The learning within this Scheme is based on: listening and appraising, musical activities, creating and exploring and singing and performing.  

Intent

Our music curriculum intends to inspire creativity, self-expression and to encourage 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, performers and as composers, all will enable them to become confident, reflective musicians. 

We make music an enjoyable learning experience and we encourage children to participate in a variety of musical experiences through which we aim to build up the confidence of all children. As children get older, we expect them to maintain their concentration for longer and to listen to more extended pieces of music expressing how it makes them feel through words and pictures.

Our teaching focuses on developing the children’s ability to confidently sing in tune and with other people. Using instruments, we teach the children how to work with others to compose music and perform for an audience. Through singing songs, children learn about the structure and organisation of music. We also teach them to understand pitch, rhythm and timbre.

Aims:

• To build a musical curriculum which develops learning and results in the acquisition of knowledge and improved well-being.
• To promote a love of music and singing across a broadened curriculum so that all children know more, remember more and understand more.
• To provide opportunities for theatre/musical visits such as a pantomime and singing in various concerts locally

Implementation

We follow the sequences of learning in the key areas of singing, listening, composing, and performance/instrumental performance. Our lessons engage pupils in active and creative activities to develop skills in singing, improvising and composing, listening and appraising, instrument learning and learning the elements of music. Pupils listen to a broad and diverse repertoire of music to support understanding of cultural, social, and historical context of music, helping them to develop active listening skills and to learn the language of music. Pupils sing regularly in class / whole school worship, developing singing technique, musicianship, and skills needed to perform in large ensembles.

There is clear progress in KS1 / KS2 and small class sizes mean children are given bespoke and tailored support and feedback while playing their instruments.

Our clear and comprehensive scheme of work aligns with the National Curriculum and teaching and learning shows progression across all key stages within the strands of music. Children get access to being taught by real musicians and many children have private lessons at school learning instruments such as piano, trumpet, keyboard and guitar. All children get experience of performing to a wider audience in the Christmas play and concerts held in the local area. Children will be aware of opportunities available and possibility of accessing them.

Impact

Our pupils will have a broad experience of different genres and styles, and are able to use this experience to discover genres and styles that they can listen to that will support their wellbeing and enhance their lives long term.

By the time children leave Crowton, they will have a rapidly widened repertoire which they will be able to use to create original, imaginative, fluent and distinctive composing and performance works. The children leave us as musicians who possess the following traits:

• Confidence
• Patience
• Modesty
• Creativity
• Resilience

We expect them to have self-confidence in their ability as musicians and to use the skills they learn to be creative and feel a sense of achievement. Pupils will feel confident to take risks and have resilience when faced with challenges, not just in music but with all aspects of their learning. We expect that the joy of music-making will enrich each pupil while strengthening the shared bonds of support and trust with other pupils and school staff.

• Children will achieve age related expectations in music at the end of their cohort year.
• Children will retain knowledge that is pertinent to music.
• Children will have the opportunity to foster their instrumental flare and use this as a form of expression.
• Children will participate in wider musical activities.
• Opportunities for improved well-being and confidence will be increased.
• Children will gain wider audience performance experience.
• Children will have heightened awareness of musical opportunities available in and outside of school in the hope that access will be increased.

Assessment

As music is a practical subject, assessment may be done by focussing on a small group at a time on certain tasks or skills, observing the children, discussing their work or self/group/teacher evaluation against criteria from the National Curriculum programmes of study and end of year expectations. The progression grid provided by the subject leader ensures children are accessing work at age related expectations, with regular opportunities to be challenged through higher-level objectives. Children are assessed according to age related expectations in line with curriculum requirements. This shared termly with the subject co-ordinator.

EYFS: Music

In EYFS, music is not taught as separate curriculum strand but embedded throughout all of the specific learning areas. It is predominantly taught through Expressive Art and Design – exploring using media and materials. Children will have the opportunity to sing songs, make music and dance and experiment with ways of changing them. They safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function.

The aims of our EYFS curriculum is to develop children’s early expressive and creative skills by:

• Allowing them to listen carefully to rhymes, stories and songs, encouraging them to pay attention to how they sound.
• Encouraging them to move to and talk about music whilst expressive their feelings and responses.
• Preparing them to explore and engage in music making and dance, performing solo or in groups with their peers.
• Supporting them whilst watching and talking about live music, performing arts and dance performances, encouraging them to talk about what they have seen and express their feelings and responses respectfully.
• Inspiring children to play instruments with increasing control and supporting them in upholding a pulse and rhythm to a melody whilst expressing their own feelings and ideas. This in turn will allow them to begin to compose their own pieces of music.

Music contributes to a child’s personal and social development. Counting songs foster a child’s mathematical ability and songs from different cultures increase a child’s knowledge and understanding of the world.

Early Learning Goals:

• Sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs.
• Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others, and – when appropriate – try to move in time with music.

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