Rationale
At St Luke’s we are musicians!
Our relationship with Music is fundamental and life enhancing. As a school, we capitalise on this for the good and wellbeing of the children. We provide opportunities and exposure to Music which develops our children’s ‘cultural capital’ and enhances their ‘character education’. We want our children to develop a love and respect for a wide range of music throughout history and from varied cultures. We strive to make our Music lessons inclusive and welcoming so that they enable all of our children at St Luke’s to flourish and succeed.
Intent
The intention of our music curriculum is to first and foremost help children feel that they are musical, to feel successful in this and to develop a life long love of music. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding the 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. We also strive to provide our children with a breadth of musical experiences including, exposure to instrument lessons, which start in Year 2 and continue throughout school, musical visitors and performances.
Our 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 enjoy listening to and learn how music can be written down. Our music curriculum helps our children develop transferable skills such as team work, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision making, 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 our school.
Implementation
Using and adapting Kapow’s Primary Music scheme allows us to take a holistic approach to Music. 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
Each unit combines these strands within a cross-curricular topic, designed to capture pupils’ imagination, encourage them to explore music enthusiastically and develop an appreciation and respect for music from a variety of times and cultures.
Our children will be taught how to sing fluently and expressively and play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control.
These skills are also honed through whole class half termly instrument lessons run by the Rochdale Music Service (run from Year 2 – Year 6) and through clubs run by staff such as our school choir and drama club.
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 compositions.
We use a spiral curriculum model, this means that previous skills and knowledge are returned to and built upon throughout the children’s musical journey at St Luke’s.
In each lesson, the children 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. Our lessons are ‘hands on’ and incorporate movement and dance elements, as well as making cross-curricular links with other areas of learning.
As well as adapting and using the Kapow scheme in our Reception classes, the fundamentals of Music are also delivered to our youngest children through the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. The EYFS curriculum supports children’s musical development through the planning and teaching of ‘Expressive Arts and Design’. Our children’s skills are also honed through planned opportunities for ‘Communication and Language’ and ‘Physical Development’.
In Reception and Year 1, in addition to direct teaching, the carefully thought out continuous provision allows our children to build on skills which provide a strong foundation for their musical development throughout school. Both the environment (indoor and out) and skilled practitioners foster curiosity and encourage explorative play. Our children are motivated to use a variety of artistic effects to express their ideas and feelings, refine their ideas and develop ways to express them, listen attentively and respond, combine different movements and create collaboratively.
Impact
The impact of our Music curriculum is monitored through both formative and summative assessment. At the end of each unit there is a performance element which allows teachers to make a summative assessment, but also allows children to showcase the skills they have learnt and grow in confidence.
Knowledge organisers for each unit support our children by providing a highly visual record of the key learning from the unit, encouraging recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary.
We aim for the children to leave our 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.
The expected impact of our curriculum 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 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 expectations outlined in the National Curriculum for Music.
Click the link below to view our Music school blog page to see some examples of how our pupils flourish in Music at St. Luke’s: