Music

Intent 

At Goldfield Infants’ and Nursery School we aim to nurture a love for music which will start children off on their life long musical journey. Music makes an important contribution to the life of our school so we celebrate, promote and encourage it not only in weekly music lessons but across our whole school in classroom learning, music appreciation assemblies, extra-curricular activities, and in musical performances and celebrations.

We aim to offer an inclusive, compelling and engaging music curriculum, in line with National Curriculum and Early Years objectives, focusing 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 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 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.

Implementation 

Music is mainly taught using the online scheme Kapow, with some adaptations and use of materials from other sources used to help consolidate learning. We have chosen to follow the Kapow Music scheme of work because it offers a clear and progressive programme of study which meets our vision and enables pupils to meet the National Curriculum end of key stage attainment targets.

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

● Listening and evaluating ● Creating sound ● Notation ● Improvising and composing ● Performing Each five-lesson unit combines these strands within a cross-curricular topic designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Over the course of their musical learning, children will be taught how to sing fluently and expressively and play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control. They will learn to recognise, demonstrate 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. Our music curriculum follows the spiral curriculum model where previous skills and knowledge are returned to and built upon. Children progress in terms of tackling more complex tasks and doing more simple tasks better, as well as developing understanding and knowledge of the history of music and other musical notations, the interrelated dimensions of music and more.

Throughout their journey at Goldfield, children will have the opportunity to explore and learn how to play a variety of instruments from different orchestral groups, focussing on woodwind and percussion. In doing so, they understand how instruments are played in order to create different notes, as well as how to read basic music notation. In Year 2, all children learn how to play the recorder, using the ‘Recorder from the Beginning’ book series by John Pitts.

Assembly times are used to support and extend the music curriculum both through singing and listening to music. The singing of nursery rhymes and listening to music is an integral part of the Early Years provision.

In each lesson weekly, 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 ‘hands-on’ and incorporate movement and dance elements, as well as making cross curricular links with other areas of learning.

Impact

We strive for every child to achieve their full potential in music, develop a love for music, benefit from increased confidence and mental wellbeing. Our Music curriculum encourages our children to become confident performers, composers and listeners who will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school. We encourage an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and an understanding of how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social, and historical contexts in which it is developed. Children will have the knowledge of the various ways in which music can be written down to support performing and composing activities and be able to demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and identify their own personal musical preferences.

We aim for all our children to achieve age related expectations in Music at the end of the Key Stage, with children being supported and challenged accordingly. The impact of the music curriculum is constantly monitored through both summative and formative assessments. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objective and at the end of each unit there is often a performance element which teachers can use to make a summative assessment of pupils learning to ensure children meet these expectations in music. For those children who will achieve above age related expectations, opportunities to further develop their musical talents and curiosity are encouraged with extra-curricular opportunities offered.