Music

Our Intent – What we want to deliver

At St Mary’s, we use Kapow Primary music scheme.  The intention of this is first and foremost to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music.  We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers, and listeners. Our curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities.

Children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music.

They will develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music that they listen to and learn how music can be written down. Through music, our curriculum helps children develop transferable skills such as team-working, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and presentation and performance skills. These skills are vital to children’s development as learners and have  a wider application in their general lives outside and beyond school.

Our implementation – How we are going to deliver the music curriculum

In accordance with the National Curriculum, we ensure that coverage of knowledge and skills is developed sequentially throughout the school. Our curriculum takes a holistic approach to music, in which the  individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching  learning experiences:

• Performing
• Listening
• Composing
• The history of music
• The inter-related dimensions of music:  pulse, pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure, appropriate musical notation.

In KS2, a progressive instrumental unit will be taught to each class for one half term/term within the academic year. Each unit of lessons focuses on music from a different part of the world and features a bespoke piece of music composed specifically for the scheme. The lessons are created for the use of tuned percussion instruments, allowing the children the opportunities to learn effective pitch notation.

Our progression of skills and knowledge shows the skills that are taught within each  phase and how these skills develop year on year to ensure attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage.

The impact

The impact of our music curriculum can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives and at the end of each unit there is often a performance element where teachers can make a summative assessment of pupils’ learning.

Pupils should leave primary school equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and to be able to enjoy and appreciate music throughout their lives.

Our vision

Through music, our children will:

• love music from different cultures, different periods and styles,
• appreciate and understand high quality live and recorded music performances,
• be creative through listening, composing, improvising, playing and performing,
• have a sense of belonging and togetherness through making music, including singing,
• develop a life long love of music
• meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the national curriculum for Music.

Celebrating music

Beautiful singing fills our school and there are many special events small and large to participate in and showcase pupil’s musical talents.  We have plenty of extra-curricular opportunities at our singing, dance and drama clubs.

Year 3&4 and Year 6 children have performed in termly productions WOWING the audience and leaving us all rather emotional and very proud.  It’s a massive creative effort from staff and children.  Our singing assemblies make us feel happy and are often used to rehearse for special school songs and community events.  Also, in EYFS and KS1 we have our Christmas Nativities where every child sings in our Nativities for parents and in our end of term service in church.

Year 3 and Year 4 pupils learn an instrument and show off their skills at parent assemblies. We enjoy having musicians visit us and participating in local and national events such as Shropshire Sings and Young Voices and with so much music in school there are lots of concerts and community events where children showcase their musical talents to us all.

School_music_development_plan_summary_2024-25

Music long term overview – Cycle A and B – 24 – 25

School overview of concepts Music