Curriculum Intent

Music is more than a subject. It is a powerful accompaniment to our lives and a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. Our high-quality music education engages and inspires pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.

 

Aims

At St Mary and All Saints we aim to:

• Deliver fun, inspiring and engaging lessons that all children can access and that inspire the children to develop their appreciation of music.
• Provide an opportunity for reading different forms of notation and experiencing playing as part of an ensemble.
• Create numerous opportunities for children to showcase their learning and talents through performances and events.

 

Objectives   

Music is an integral and well-resourced part of life at St Mary's. Music lessons are fun and inspiring, engaging the children with songs, lyrics and movement.  Singing is at the heart of our musical offer and all children are actively encouraged and given the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument whether it be within peripatetic lessons offered to all children from years 3-6 or within our music lessons, where the children learn ocarina, recorder, glockenspiel, violin and ukulele from years 2-6 respectively.  Musical opportunities in school include weekly class music lessons, singing assembly - a highlight of our week, performer of the Week in our Friday Celebration Assembly, our highly popular choir and the very successful Summer Sessions.  Our choir performs at a range of venues including The Beaconsfield Choir Festival, and The Festival of Light.  We also have a range of musical events throughout the year including our Christmas Services, Easter Services, The Summer Sessions, our wonderful Harvest Festival, Open Evening and the fantastic Year 6 Production.

We use the Charanga scheme of work which offers an engaging approach to supporting children’s learning in music.  The scheme offers a practical, structured resource bank for teaching music and contains lessons, songs, warm ups and a range of other musical activities that support every aspect of musical learning in the primary school. A steady progression overview which links where possible to curriculum themes has been devised to ensure consistent musical development across each phase. By using Charanga as well as our instrumental opportunities, we can ensure that our children are fulfilling the aims for musical learning stated in the National Curriculum.

 

Curriculum Implementation

The music curriculum ensures children sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in the classroom activities as well as the weekly singing assemblies, various concerts and performances and the learning of instruments.

Through the musical program Charanga, teachers are able to produce inclusive lessons for all children to access the musical curriculum in a fun and engaging way, further promoting a love of learning.

Charanga lessons are planned in sequences to provide children with the opportunities to review, remember, deepen and apply their understanding.

The elements of music are taught in classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to dissect it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. In the classroom children learn how to play the recorder and a variety of percussion instruments. Playing various instruments enables children to use a range of methods to create notes, as well as how to read basic music notation.

They also learn how to compose, focusing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. Composing or performing using body percussion and vocal sounds is also part of the curriculum, which develops the understanding of musical elements without the added complexity of an instrument.

 

Singing is at the heart of our musical offer and all children are actively encouraged and given the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument. Musical opportunities in school include weekly class music lessons, singing assembly - a highlight of our week, performer of the Week in our Friday Celebration Assembly, our highly popular choir and the very successful Summer Sessions.  Our choir performs at a range of venues including The Beaconsfield Choir Festival, and The Festival of Light.  We also have a range of musical events throughout the year including our Christmas Services, Easter Services, The Summer Sessions, our wonderful Harvest Festival, Open Evening and the fantastic Year 6 Production.