Music

Music Curriculum Intent

Vision

Our curriculum at Lockerley Primary School encompasses the following aims to meet the needs of our children and the Music curriculum is a vehicle to bring these aims to life:

ACTIVE - A variety of pitched and unpitched musical instruments are available for children to use for compositions and performances, as well as immersive experiences such as school productions and the chance to work with Hampshire Music Service specialist teachers for two academic years. These provide a wide breadth of learning opportunities, as well as developing composition, performance and listening skills.

EXPERIENCES - As a school we provide a breadth of opportunity to explore different musical styles through performances and church services. These opportunities compliment and build on those from within the school setting.

DIVERSITY - Teaching across both key stages provides opportunities for children to build on their cultural awareness through consideration of different societies through Music, and developing a breadth and depth to their understanding by making links between instruments used by different cultures.

PURPOSE - Making meaningful learning is central to our teaching. Learning journeys are made clear to the children with an outcome we are working towards and the steps along the way. We have developed ‘real life’ opportunities for children to share their work.

Music Curriculum Implementation

EYFS

EYFS planning is matched to age and stage appropriate curriculum. Musical skills are adapted to match key areas of the curriculum, with children building on their knowledge of everyday sounds and songs that they are confident with, such as Nursery Rhymes. The provision includes individual and small group work, and a balance between guided interaction with direct teaching and child-led activities. Objective led planning allows the teachers to tailor individual next steps, based on assessments, into the environment and play-based activities for the children. Small group work is used to target particular needs, and early intervention is also used 1:1 with a child if they have been identified as not keeping up.

Y1-6

Music is taught in the Summer Term, and as the key foundation subject it is allocated two afternoons per week for in-depth study. Teachers plan from the National Curriculum objectives alongside advice from Hampshire Music Service. Each year group has a long term plan which outlines the learning journeys to be covered referring to the units in the National Curriculum. This is a progressive cyclical learning approach where learning is revisited over the course of each Key Stage, deepening their understanding each time.

Each learning journey is central to the teaching and this is made clear to the children. This is shared through the ‘big question’ which features on the Music learning wall in each classroom. This will incorporate all the skills they will be learning within the unit, therefore children are able to understand how one lesson builds on another within the journey.

By presenting our learning in this way, and allowing children the opportunity to deepen their understanding by focusing on Music for an entire term, children have opportunities to develop their singing and performance skills as well as learning about interrelated elements of music, and composing music using written notation.

We develop children with the following essential characteristics to help them become musicians, teaching them to:

use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes
play tuned and untuned instruments musically
experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music
sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control
play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression
improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music
listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory
use and understand staff and other musical notations
appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians
develop an understanding of the history of music.

Musical language is scaffolded in each class with key vocabulary displayed on the working wall. Teachers model the use of this language in their teaching. Stem sentences are used to support the use this key vocabulary.

We also strongly believe that within our curriculum skills should be developed alongside knowledge. Therefore we have a set of core skills at the centre of our curriculum which underpin everything we do. These build progressively as the children move through the school.

To seek out and enjoy challenges
To ask questions to extend thinking
To collaborate with others
To overcome barriers by trying out alternative and adapting or developing ideas
To assess themselves and others
To show commitment and perseverance
To connect ideas and experiences in different ways
To generate ideas and explore possibilities.

Music Curriculum Impact

Assessments are made by the teachers continuously and used to plan subsequent lessons. Tapestry is used within EYFS to record observations and assessments. This shares learning with parents and we encourage parents to share learning from home through this platform. Live marking within lessons drives immediate feedback and adaptations to learning. If feedback is given after the lesson, children are expected to respond to the marking during the following session. Teachers track individual progress on assessment sheets which identify children not achieving Age Related Expectations and those exceeding them. This provides information for the pitch of teaching in the next Music term.