St James C of E Primary School

Music

TEACH NURTURE CELEBRATE

Our Curriculum aims and design have been developed in line with the needs of St James CE Primary School community, promoting the Christian Values we hold dear. Our curriculum is ambitious and well-planned to ensure all pupils gain ample knowledge and skills to succeed in their next stage of education and life after primary school.

The aims are also based heavily on our school vision of Teach, Nurture and Celebrate in order that children should experience ‘Life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10). All stakeholders were involved in creating the vision and aims, including: pupils, parents, PTFA, and staff members at all levels.

SMSC is embedded throughout our curriculum design. The aspect of Spirituality is a particular focus for us

The St James Curriculum was chosen and adapted to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to meet Key Stage requirements and allow for smooth transition to the next phase of education. We re-designed our curriculum to enable children to experience a more enquiry-based approach. This allows children to develop key skills and seek vital knowledge through exploring big questions and concepts.

Aims:

Within our curriculum, we aim to inspire all pupils through engaging learning experiences
We aim to nurture passionate, healthy and successful learners by providing a broad, balanced and enquiry-based curriculum
Instil children with the values, knowledge and skills to enable them to achieve beyond expectations and experience success
Provide a progressive curriculum where skills and knowledge are developed through quality ongoing assessment.

Intent

Our Curriculum offers a coherently planned sequence of lessons to help teachers ensure they have progressively covered the requirements of the Music National Curriculum. Our scheme of work is taken from Charanga and ensures that children have a varied and well mapped out Music curriculum. It provides the opportunity for progression across the full breadth of the Music National Curriculum for KS1 and KS2, including: Listening to a range of high-quality live & recorded music; Listening with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory; Create sounds and music using the interrelated dimensions of music; and performing. This progression is clearly identified on progression maps and each lesson has been carefully planned to match these. Music at St James promotes qualities such as enjoyment, creativity, understanding of other cultures, enthusiasm and perseverance for quality as well as success. We nurture a sense of love for music and celebrate successes. All lessons are differentiated which helps to ensure that learning is as tailored and inclusive as possible. Each unit of work will have an overarching question which children will explore attached to it as a focus for the children to build towards being able to answer.

We teach music in EYFS as an integral part of the topic work covered during the year. As the reception class is part of the Foundation Stage of the National Curriculum, we relate the musical aspects of the children’s work to the objectives set out in the Early Learning Goals (ELGs), which underpin the curriculum planning for children aged three to five.

Music contributes to a child’s personal and social development. Counting songs foster a child’s mathematical ability and songs from different cultures increase a child’s knowledge and understanding of the world. At the end of a year pupils should be secure in nearly all units.

Implementation

Our lesson plans ensure that all teachers are equipped with the secure subject knowledge required to deliver modern, high-quality teaching and learning opportunities for all areas of the Music National Curriculum. Our overarching aim is for teachers to have the knowledge and skills they need to feel confident in teaching all areas of Music, regardless of their main areas of expertise. Lessons are planned alongside subject-specific progression maps to ensure that children are given the opportunity to practise existing skills and also build on these to develop new or more advanced skills. Formative assessments are supported through the inclusion of progress pauses and interwoven into the teaching sequence are key assessment questions. These allow teachers to assess the different levels of understanding and skill at various points in the lesson and also allow time to recap concepts and skills where necessary, helping to embed learning. Teachers use questioning and a final performance piece to gauge pupil responses and inform assessment. Input for lesson and the structure of lessons is disseminated in a structured and progressive way. In EYFS songs are sung throughout different areas of the curriculum

Where pupils are struggling with knowledge or Music skills, lessons are differentiated to ensure maximum progress is made.

We are visited weekly by a wide range of peripatetic music teachers who teach piano, violin, brass, drums, flute, clarinet and singing. Parents can choose at the start of each term if they wish to book lessons. We organise concerts so that children who play instruments have the opportunity to showcase their talent to family and friends

Within school we offer every child a chance to join the choir (known as Sing for Fun). All children take part in a musical performance at some stage during the year. YR and Y3 tell the story of the nativity in song, Y1 and Y4 present a production in the spring term, Y2 and Y5 present the Easter story, and Y6 perform to great acclaim in July before moving on to their next schools.

Impact

Each unit is mapped against the progression documents to ensure that learners develop detailed knowledge and skills across the full breadth of the Music curriculum through engaging and age-appropriate curriculum content. After each unit of work, pupils will be assessed using the end of Key Stage expectations set out in the 2014 National Curriculum and success criteria set out in each unit of work. The high quality, progressive and consistent approach to Music will provide pupils with the best possible platform to achieve at a high standard. These assessments will be used to identify gifted musicians and those requiring extra support. It is our aim that children recognise their full potential and we encourage and enthuse them to aim high in all areas of their learning.

At end of a unit the teacher is able to judge whether a child is secure in that half terms unit. This is then reported on and used for differentiation.

All Documents are from the scheme Charanga: https://charanga.com/site/musical-school/