Music
Music at Overleigh St Mary’s C of E Primary School
Intent
In Music, children will be provided with opportunities and experiences to reach the desired national curriculum expectations by the end of Key Stage 2. They will achieve this through the developmental progression in their knowledge, skills and understanding on a termly and yearly basis. In Music, children develop their learning by following a systematic termly programme which incorporates a combination of singing, playing musical instruments and musical composition, at age-related expectations. Through the study of different musicians, children will learn about a diverse range of key role models, to develop an awareness of musicians and the significant figures who have helped to shape the subject.
The national curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:
- perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians
- learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, use technology appropriately and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence
- understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.
Implementation
Children explore key concepts as they move through the school. Our curriculum is laid out in such a way that the children will initially learn how to listen for everyday sounds how to choose objects to make an intended sound and perform when given visual cues. This will be a starting block in EYFS and built upon as they enter Key Stage 1. As a child moves through our school, their musical skill and understanding will deepen as it would have been built on the foundations laid in the previous years. The core musical concepts of listening, performing and composing are revisited in different units allowing children to apply new knowledge and increasingly musical interpretations to the concept. For example, children in EYFS and KS1 would approach musical notation by first looking at pictures of instruments as a cue to when to play, then move to graphic notation until in Upper Key Stage 2 they would be expected to recognise and write some traditional western notation.
We aim to make music an enjoyable learning experience and an integral part of life at Overleigh St. Mary’s. It is taught as both a discrete subject and within other areas of learning when deemed appropriate.
Students are given the opportunity to experience small group or individual instrumental lessons with visiting peripatetic teachers on piano, woodwind, string and brass instruments. We also offer a provision through a link with Edsential for whole class learning of an instrument.
Impact
Our Music Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to ensure progression. Our teachers measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- A knowledge check at the beginning of each unit to see what the children already know
- Link each of our core strands to previous learning, to compare and contrast and to review understanding
- Start lessons with a recap of key knowledge and understanding from the previous session
- Provide opportunities each lesson to use the key vocabulary
- Assess children at the end of the unit against key knowledge and learning
The leadership team check that this impact is being secured through monitoring the subject on a regular basis. This includes:
- Staff subject knowledge, which is audited each year to ensure knowledge is secure, and additional support provided if necessary
- Regular staff meetings to discuss and evaluate the effectiveness of topics with the subject leaders. From this, medium term planning is amended and adapted to ensure the curriculum remains relevant for the children
- A ‘pupil voice’, which is conducted at the beginning and end of each year to allow pupils to contribute to their curriculum content
- Bi-termly monitoring of work against the medium-term plans, so that inconsistencies can be addressed
The impact of this is that students at Overleigh are enthusiastic musicians who are equipped with age appropriate skills and knowledge but perhaps most importantly, a life-long love of music.