Music

INTENT: Our art curriculum supports the aims and objectives of National Curriculum 2014.

We believe -

● Music is a unique way of communicating that can inspire and motivate children.

● It is a vehicle for personal expression, and it can play an important part in personal development.

● Music reflects the culture and society we live in, and so the teaching and learning of music enables children to better understand the world they live in.

● Music is creative and enjoyable and can play an important part in helping children to feel part of a community.

● All children should be given the opportunity to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop the skills, to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms and to begin to make judgments about the quality of music.

● Many cross-curricular links can be made through music to give a connected curriculum.

● CPDL, enables us as practitioners to adapt our teaching to best benefit our pupils.

● Teachers need to have a strong, connected understanding of the material being taught.

IMPACT:

This is the impact of the teaching:

● Confident children who make links and comparisons between different pieces of music they hear and create using appropriate vocabulary.

● Children who can experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music (pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure, musical notations) and develop this as they move through school.

● Children who play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression.

This is how we monitor the impact

● Teacher assessment.

● Tracking grids are completed by teaching staff and analysed by the music Lead and shared with school leadership.

● Performances - Nativity, Key Stage Productions.

● Evidence, recordings and photographs of children’s work is gathered throughout the year.

● Music shared with family members during class Collectiver Worship.

● Feedback to parents / carers during parent interviews and annual reports. ● Pupil interviews.

What music lessons look like in our school:

● We make music an enjoyable learning experience.

● We encourage children to participate in a variety of musical experiences through which we aim to build up the confidence of all children.

● Singing lies at the heart of good music teaching and we focus on developing the children’s ability to sing in tune and with other people.

● We listen to and appreciate pieces from many different styles of music. We encourage children to describe the music they are listening to and their feelings towards it.

● We use musical vocabulary such as pitch and pulse and encourage children to use these and other musical vocabulary they have learned in their discussions.

● We give children the opportunity to explore how sounds can be made and combined using a variety of instruments.

● We also teach children to make music together, to understand musical notation, and to compose pieces.

● We recognise that within each class of children there is a wide range of musical ability, and so we seek to provide suitable learning opportunities for all. This is what we do:

● We use the basis of the Kapow Music Scheme as our starting point in each year group.

● We plan the activities in music so that they build on the children’s prior learning and experiences.

● We give children of all abilities the opportunity to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding. ● We also plan progression into the scheme of work, so that there is an increasing challenge for the children as they move up through the school.

The objectives of teaching music in our school are to enable children to:

● Know and understand how sounds are made and then organised into musical structures.

● Know how music is made through a variety of instruments; ● know how music is composed and written down.

● Know how music is influenced by the time, place and the purpose for which it was written.

● Develop the interrelated skills of performing, composing and appreciating music.

● Take part in a choral music project, being given the opportunity to perform in a range of settings e.g. local church and at Leicester Cathedral.

● learn to play an instrument through the year four wider opportunities music scheme.

● Study a variety of musical instruments with peripatetic teachers. This includes children who choose to continue to learn to play their instrument beyond year four. Parents who want their children to study a musical instrument must purchase or hire the instrument and pay the additional music lesson fees each term. These lessons are normally taught to small groups.

● Participate in wider musical projects e.g. Young Voices, Diosing concerts at the Catherdral.