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Music

At Broomwood Primary we promote music for all pupils and we encourage the highest forms of creativity. Through a high quality music education, we aim to inspire all pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians. We aim to increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of musical achievement. Our music curriculum is sequential and progressive, in order to improve the transition of knowledge from the short term to the long-term memory. We revise and revisit the musical knowledge regularly throughout each year, building schema; to embed knowledge into the long-term memory.

Intent

 

We use the Kapow Primary music scheme to enhance our curriculum of music. The intent of the music curriculum 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 them musical skills of singing, playing tunes and untuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music. They will develop and 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 scheme of work enables 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 long-term plan shows how the schemas are taught across the 2-year cycle:

Our progression of skills document shows how musical skills are developed and built upon over the music curriculum.

Our progression of listening skills document shows how children across the school are given broad listening exeriences covering a wide range of musical genre and styles.

 

Implementation

Our Music scheme takes a holistic approach to music, in which the individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences:

  • Performing
  • Listening
  • Composting
  • The history of music
  • The inter-related dimensions of music

Each lesson unit combines these strands within a cross-curricular topic 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 use these expressively in their own improvisations and composition.

The instrumental lessons e.g. the recorder allow lower key stage pupils to develop their expertise in using a tuned instrument for a minimum of one term as recommended in the Model music curriculum.

The music scheme follows the spiral curriculum model where previous skills and knowledge and returned to and built upon. 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 practical and incorporate movement and dance elements, as well as making cross curricular links with other areas of learning.

designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Over the course of the scheme, children will be taught how to sing fluently and expressively.

Impact

Through our curriculum Intent and Implementation, we ensure that:

All children are accessing the substantive knowledge taught and where necessary reasonable adjustments are used to support access to this. Through formative and summative assessments, we can track the progress of individuals and groups, ensuring that all children are making progress within music.

Where children are struggling to consolidate the substantive knowledge a graduated approach of support is implemented for all. At this point, the disciplinary and substantive knowledge is still taught, however the resources selected will be differentiated to enable all children to achieve the objectives. On Kapow, each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives and at the end of each unit there is a performance element where teachers can make a summative assessment of pupils’ learning. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils by providing a highly visual record of the key learning from the unit, encouraging recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary.

After the implementation of our music curriculum, pupils should leave 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. 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 wide range of musical styles from around the world and will understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social, and historical contexts 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 musical preferences.
  • Meet the end of key stage expectation outlined in the national curriculum for Music.

Wider Curicular Activities

Within music we provide the pupils with a range of musical opportunities to develop their skills and love of learning for music. These include:

  • KS1 and KS2 whole class instrumental and vocal projects for example, the ukulele for KS1, samba for LKS2 and African drumming for upper KS2. Towards the end of these instrumental projects, the pupils have the opportunity to perform to the parents and for the rest of the school.
  • We provide the children with a range of musical lunchtime and after school clubs e.g. the recorder club, choir and performing arts. The choir and recorder club perform pieces during assemblies. At Christmas, we take the choir to perform in Altrincham Town Centre and to the local nursing homes.  
  • Performance is at the heart of Broomwood and the children are encouraged to perform to an audience regularly e.g. Harvest Festival, Christmas, class assemblies, ukulele performances, recorders etc.    
  • We build links with the local Grammar Schools, which include visits from past pupils who will come to take to the children and perform pieces of music.
  • During the summer term, Year 5 take part in the Trafford Music Extraffordganza at the Bridgewater Hall or The Garrick Theatre. This enables them to sing and play alongside other pupils from other schools. Furthermore they listen to a wide range of professional musicians perform.  
  • School subsidise group guitar and ukulele lessons for pupil premium children, so each week they receive a group lesson with Trafford.
  • Children who have shown a real flair for music have been subsidised to continue with private tuition e.g. guitar and ukulele. Other pupils have private tuition which has been funded by their parents. These pupils have performed pieces at the Christmas concert and other times of the year. Opportunities and space are provided at lunchtimes for pupils to practice each week within school. 
  • Music is embedded throughout the EYFS curriculum and classrooms are set up to promote the children's passion and development of music. The learning and development of music is implemented through planned, purposeful play and through a mix of adult-led and child-initiated activities. Music within the EYFS helps to develop the child's phonics, language and attention and listening skills.
  • Equal opportunities and cultures are promoted where we provide knowledge of a range of music composers and music from different cultures. We teach the children about male and female composers. We look at different composers in History and we also look at a range of musicians, including from the local area. Music coverage across key stages is broad and builds on previous learning.