Music
Growing Musicians to Live in God’s World
Intent
At St Andrew’s CE Primary School, our Music curriculum is underpinned by our school principles: Wisdom, Grace and Hope, which are rooted in the Bible. Our aim is to grow confident and respectful learners to live happily in God’s world, underpinned by a strong focus on emotional health and wellbeing.
GROWING: It is our ambition that every St Andrew’s pupil is able to develop a deep understanding of their place in the world, starting with their role at school, within the local community and beyond.
We strive to do this by delivering a high quality Music curriculum which inspires all children to engage in the key areas of listening and appraising, performing, composing and improvising.
Our Music sessions are taught within a nurturing and supportive environment which enables our learners to receive the appropriate level of support they need in order to achieve personal success and development.
CONFIDENT AND RESPECTFUL LEARNERS: Our Music curriculum aims to develop a lifelong love of Music for all pupils. We want our learners to be equipped with the knowledge and skills for success in life. Our approach encourages active engagement with time for reflection, and promotes lifelong learning.
TO LIVE IN: We want to provide all children with the potential to thrive, not just survive in God’s world, making positive contributions to their immediate, local and global community. Our Music curriculum successfully supports this by providing all learners with opportunities to develop key life skills including self-confidence, self-discipline, self-expression, sensitivity, collaboration, communication and creativity.
GOD’S WORLD: Through our continuously evolving curriculum, we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for all pupils and to develop learners that feel inspired and motivated to reach their full potential in God’s world, successfully putting into practice key life skills.
Implementation and Impact
The above aims can only be achieved through effective teaching and learning in Music lessons and in the wider curriculum. The Music curriculum is knowledge and skills-based, and provides all children with purposeful opportunities for developing key skills and concepts through a range of listening, performing and composing activities. Our curriculum closely follows the aims of the National Curriculum for Music 2014. It is linked where appropriate to other curriculum areas but is also taught as a discreet subject.
Planning the Progression Model
To enable children to build up their confidence in these key skills, we ensure that our Music curriculum content follows a clear sequence of progression. Teaching is designed to help learners to remember in the long term, the content they have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts. Teachers use the school long term subject overview to create their own half-termly medium term plans to cover the full range of skills and expectations set out within the Government guidance to ensure that planning is progressive and successive across the school.
Assessment
The Music curriculum enables teachers and pupils to continually assess progress and ascertain the appropriate next steps. Each lesson develops at least one key skill and provides clear stepping stones for progression and development within it. Teachers can scaffold the delivery of lesson content to ensure that all pupils are working at the appropriate level and are able to successfully extend their skills.
Within the half-termly units teachers make on-going assessments of the children’s skills and abilities and use these to make a formal judgment at the end of the unit. These are used to identify those children working above or below the typical level for a particular age range. These judgements are then used to help teachers write the pupil’s Music reports.
Breadth and Depth
In order to provide a balanced Music curriculum, children take part in a range of lessons which focus on both individual skills and knowledge, alongside broader projects and challenges. Classes 1, 2, 3 and 4 participate in one session of high quality Music each week. Class 5 and 6 participate in one session of high quality Music each week every other half term. This is developed further through other curriculum areas and Worship.
Culture Capital plays a key role in our Music curriculum. We believe it inspires and motivates all pupils and enhances their understanding of different musical cultures and traditions. We encourage visiting groups into school, for example an Opera performance of Peace at Last to Key Stage One, as well as visits to quality live performances outside school.
Peripatetic instrumental and vocal lessons further enhance the Music provision.
Impact
Our children grow into confident, respectful and reflective individuals who are eager to participate in a range of musical activities including listening, performing and composing. Through the broad and balanced curriculum, children demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of Music from a range of cultures, traditions, genres and styles. Pupils are able to critically evaluate their own work and that of others, in order to learn from their experiences and refine their skills.
They enjoy learning new knowledge and skills and sharing these in performances within the school community, through Worship, Church services and Christmas productions. Members of the School Choir love to contribute to their local community by performing Christmas songs and instrumental pieces to residents of Burleys Wood Care Home and participating in lunchtime concerts as part of the Crawley Festival.
NEWS
On Tuesday 31st January, the whole school enjoyed a live performance by the Ensemble Reza. Six musicians came to perform ‘The Town Musical of Bremen’. This is a traditional piece of music based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale about the journey taken by four animals. The music is very upbeat - a mixture of folk, bluegrass, jazz, classical and even a rap with a chorus for all to join in. The overriding message of the story was that of being kind and giving to those less well-off than ourselves. The children really enjoyed the live music and were able to participate at key points.
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