Curriculum Intent for Music

The intention of the Music Curriculum at Brown’s C of E Primary School is first and foremost to help children to feel that they are musical and to develop a lifelong 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. Our music 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.

Using Kapow’s Primary Music Scheme of Work enables our pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets outlined in the national curriculum and the aims of the scheme align with those in the national curriculum.

The Implementation of our Music Curriculum

Using Kapow’s Primary Music Scheme of Work, we take a holistic approach to the implementation of our music curriculum in which the individual strands below are woven together to create an engaging and enriching learning experience:

• Performing
• Listening
• Composing
• The history of music
• The interrelated dimensions of music

Each five-lesson unit combines these strands within a cross curricular topic designed to capture people's imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Over the course of the scheme, children will be taught how to sing fluently and expressively, and play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control. They will learn to recognise and name the interrelated dimensions of music: pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture and dynamics and they use these expressively in their own improvisations and compositions.

Our curriculum overview shows which of our units cover each of the national curriculum attainment targets as well as each of these strands within it.

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

The Kapow Primary Music Scheme follows the spiral curriculum model where previous skills and knowledge or returned to and built upon. Children progress in terms of tackling more complex tasks and doing more simple tasks better, as well as developing understanding and knowledge of the history of music, staff and the other musical notations as well as the interrelated dimensions of music and more. We will employ our metacognitive teaching approach to the teaching of music. Metacognition is a key component of musical performance. Metacognitive knowledge and skills are fundamental for musicians at all stages of their academic and professional career to allow them to structure, monitor, assess and, if needed, revise practice sessions toward specific performance goals

In each lesson, pupils will actively participate in musical activities drawn from a range of styles and traditions, developing their musical skills and their understanding of how music works. Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work as well as improvisation and teacher led performances. Lessons are hands on and incorporate movement and dance elements as well as making cross curricular links with other areas of learning.

We ensure that every lesson can be accessed by all pupils by providing opportunities to stretch pupils learning and support those who need it, when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils in building a foundation of factual knowledge by encouraging recall of facts and vocabulary.

Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to be able to deliver a highly effective and robust music curriculum. Each unit of lessons include multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD aiding teachers in their own acquisition of musical skills and knowledge. This is supported by the subject leader having specialist knowledge and experience of music. Staff can develop their CPD opportunities further by watching webinars with music specialists. We want our staff to feel confident delivering the music curriculum, so we ensure every effort has been made to make them feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.

Music is timetabled for one hour per week at Key stage one and Key Stage 2. In early years, music is incorporated daily into the structure and routines of the environment. Singing happens in school everyday. We work closely with Lincolnshire music service to promote individual and small group instrumental lessons. We use the expertise from specialist teachers from Lincolnshire Music Service who deliver whole class music lessons for two terms to Key Stage One and Key Stage 2. We promote a love of music and performance by running an extracurricular school choir and prioritising the opportunities to perform. We perform at the local church and with other choirs and children from our trust schools.

We encourage Musicians to come to school to perform for our children. We hope to inspire children to understand that music can be an avenue for personal development, and even future employment. We support children in realising the positive effects that music can play in promoting and improving personal wellbeing

The impact of the Music Curriculum at Brown's C of E Primary School

We use both formative and summative assessment opportunities to constantly monitor the impact of our music curriculum. 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 people's learning. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils by providing a highly visual record of the learning from the unit, encouraging recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary.

Pupils should leave Browns Church of England Primary School equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and be able to enjoy and appreciate music throughout their lives.

The expected impact of the music curriculum at Browns Church of England Primary School is that children will:

• be confident performers composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school.
• show an appreciation and respect for a ride range of musical styles from around the world and will understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural social and historical context in which it is developed.
• understand the ways in which music can be written down to support performing and composing activities.
• demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and be able to identify their own personal music preferences.
• meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the national curriculum for music.