At St Anne's Primary School we intend to deliver a music curriculum which is fully inclusive to every child. Music provides all the children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills and an opportunity to express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas.
Our intentions are to:
Fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for Music, provide a broad and balanced curriculum, ensure the progressive development of knowledge and skills across the whole school.
Our curriculum enables children to develop their skills in performance, composition, listening and appraising. Through studying Music as part of meaningful projects they will also be able to develop a knowledge of significant musicians and composers, increase critical awareness of the roles and purposes of music in different times and cultures and increasingly analyse works using the language of music. Our curriculum allows children to develop their competence in controlling the sound that tuned and un-tuned percussions make as well as playing recorders and ukuleles. Additionally, through the support of outsider partners we offer drumming, woodwind, brass and keyboard lessons (free to those in receipt of free school meals). All children are encouraged to explore the voice with opportunities for group singing through collective worship, year group performance and membership of the school choir.
Knowledge and skills are developed sequentially and we use the 'Charanga' scheme to support the delivery of the curriculum. The curriculum builds on the concepts and skills in a progressive way. Additionally, we employ the services of Music Specialists through NCC Inspire to further enhance our music curriculum.
Teaching of Music in the Foundation Stage:
Within the Early Years Foundation Stage, activities and experiences for pupils are based on the seven areas of learning and development. All activities will provide elements of learning from the Prime Areas (PSED, Physical Development, Communication and Language) and specific areas (Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the world, Expressive arts and design) of learning. This provision links to the National Curriculum Programme of Study for Music, beginning in Key Stage 1. Activities are also planned to enable children to develop their own Characteristics of Effective Learning:
Playing and Exploring (engagement) - Finding out and exploring, playing with what they know, be willing to have a go.
Active Learning (motivation) - Being involved and concentrating, keeping trying, enjoying achieving what they set out to do.
Creating and Thinking Critically (thinking) - Having their own ideas, making links, choosing ways to do things
Pupils explore and use a variety of instruments and stimulus materials, through a combination of child initiated and adult directed activities. They have opportunities to learn to:
Begin to build a repertoire of songs and dances.
Explore the different sounds of instruments.
Select appropriate resources and adapt work where necessary.
Create simple representations of events, people and objects.
ELG: Children sing songs, make music and dance, and experiment with ways of changing them.
ELG: Children use what they have learnt about media and materials in original ways, thinking about uses and purposes. They represent their own ideas, thoughts and feelings through design and technology, art, music, dance, role play and stories.
Teaching of Music in Key Stage 1:
Pupils are taught to:
use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and 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 inter-related dimensions of music.
perform collectively as part of a group in a whole school play/production.
Teaching of Music in Key stage 2:
Pupils should be taught to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.
Pupils are taught:
Whilst in school, children have opportunities to forge their own musical journey, which allows them to discover areas of strength, as well as areas they might like to improve upon. The integral nature of music and the learner creates an enormously rich palette from which a child may access fundamental abilities such as: achievement, self-confidence, interaction with and awareness of others, and self-reflection. Music will also develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to students individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world. Children are able to enjoy music, in as many ways as they choose - either as listener, creator or performer. They can discuss music and comprehend its parts. They can sing, feel a pulse, add rhythms and create melodies in a group and they can further develop these skills in the future and continue to enjoy and embrace music in their lives.
Information is gathered through pupil questionnaires, highlighting strengths and achievement and any improvements, knowledge and skills that still need to be embedded.
Final end of year assessments are made using assessment criteria that has been developed in line with the national curriculum and our Music progression of skills framework. Thus identifying the level in which the child is working. Moreover, children in Foundation Stage are assessed within the Expressive Arts and Design specific area of development and their progress is tracked termly.
Age related expectation levels are reported to parents at the end of the reception year.
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.
Choir
Children have the opportunity to join the school choir from Year 2. The choir sing a range of songs over the year and find opportunity to perform at a variety of events - local concerts, Stadium Performance - Young Voices as well as perform for local events eg) local nursing homes, church concerts.
Hymn Practice
The children come together to practice hymns that we sing together in collective worship, giving further opportunity to develop their use of voice.
Performance across the school is demonstrated in a variety of ways, from class assemblies, Key Stage productions, individual performance, ensembles gathered to support community events such as ' The Worksop Light Switch On', Church concerts including the 'Family of School's Musical Event' aswell as entries in the Worksop Music Festival.