Music
Our Curriculum Intent for Music
At Offham Primary School, our music curriculum intends to inspire creativity, self-expression and to encourage our children on their musical journeys as well as giving them opportunities to connect with others. We hope to foster a life long love of music by exposing them to diverse musical experiences and igniting a passion for music. By listening and responding to different musical styles, finding their voices as singers, performers and as composers, all will enable them to become confident, reflective musicians.
Teaching and Learning in Music (Implementation)
At Offham our music curriculum ensures students can create their own music, sing, listen, play, and perform. This is embedded into daily classroom activities, weekly music lessons, weekly singing assemblies, regular concerts and performances and the learning of instruments.
The elements of music are taught in classroom lessons so that children are able to use the language of music to discuss it, and understand how it is made, played and appreciated. In the classroom, students learn how to play the glockenspiel in Key Stage 1 and the recorder, in Key Stage 2. In learning to play a musical instrument, our children learn to understand the principles of using designated notes or chords, how to improvise and compose with their own ideas. They will also become familiar with non standard notation and some basic standard treble music notation.
Our Music Curriculum:
We follow the national curriculum for music. Here is a link to the national curriculum documentation: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-music-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-music-programmes-of-study
Aims and ambitions for music:
Our aim is for all pupils to:
- Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians.
- Learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, use technology appropriately and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence.
- Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the interrelated dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.
What do we expect our children to learn in music by the end of each key stage?
In early years:
- Listen with increased attention to sounds.
- Respond to what they have heard, expressing their thoughts and feelings.
- Remember and sing entire songs.
- Sing the pitch of a tune sung by another person (‘pitch match’).
- Sing the melodic shape (moving melody, such as up and down, down and up) of familiar songs.
- Sing in a group or on their own.
- Create their own songs or improvise a song around one they know.
- Play instruments with increasing control to express their feelings and ideas.
Key stage 1:
- Use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes
- Play tuned and untuned instruments musically
- Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music
- Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the interrelated dimensions of music
Key Stage 2:
By the time our pupils leave our school, we aim for them to be able to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.
We teach pupils to:
- Play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression.
- Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the interrelated dimensions of music.
- Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory.
- Use and understand staff and other musical notations.
- Appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians.
- Develop an understanding of the history of music.
How have we designed our curriculum?
We use the Charanga scheme to structure our curriculum. We chose this scheme because it sequences learning in music throughout each year group and supports our staff well to deliver the music curriculum.
The scheme covers the following in each lesson:
- Listen and Appraise
- Musical Activities include Games, Singing, Playing, Improvising and Composing
- Perform/Share
Progression in music:
The Charanga Scheme follows a spiral approach to musical learning, with children revisiting, building and extending their knowledge and skills incrementally. In this manner, their learning is consolidated and augmented, increasing musical confidence and enabling them to go further. Teachers can adapt their teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of the children they teach.
Our interrelated dimensions of music chart shows how we sequence the curriculum so that it is spiral, and builds progressively on knowledge (substantive knowledge and disciplinary knowledge) over time:
The Impact of Music teaching and learning at Offham
At Offham we aim that, by the time they leave our school, our children will have a wide repertoire which they will be able to use to create original, imaginative, fluent and distinctive composing and performance works.
This is evident through;
- A musical understanding underpinned by high levels of aural perception, internalisation and knowledge of music, including high or rapidly developing levels of technical expertise.
- Very good awareness and appreciation of different musical traditions and genres.
- An excellent understanding of how musical provenance - the historical, social and cultural origins of music - contributes to the diversity of musical styles.
- The ability to give explanations, using musical terminology effectively, accurately and appropriately.
- A passion for and commitment to a diverse range of musical activities.
How can I support my child with Music?
Come along to see what they have been up to! At Offham we have regular performances including; Harvest Festival, Christmas productions and Concerts, our Spring Music Festival, Young Voices and Special Assemblies. Your children are proud of the learning they do in Music and it's important to show them how proud we are of them. You could also get involved by encouraging and listening to them practise their parts.
Music has been proven to have a strong impact on the way children learn in multiple subjects as well as being great fun.
