Music

Music Intent, Implementation and Impact

At St Georges, we are all musicians! We want all our children to encourage awareness, enjoyment and appreciation of music in all its forms. We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be music producers, songwriters, composers, critics or rock stars! We want them to grow in their musical abilities as they progress through the curriculum, becoming more musically attuned, expressive and passionate in their responses to music. Children are given opportunities to experiment with ways of changing sound and develop an understanding of pulse, rhythm and pitch. The will sing, play instruments, compose, listen and appraise. We give children access to an inspiring, engaging and diverse music curriculum reflecting the world around them, giving them access to a range of musical styles past and present. We are confident that all children will be able to listen to and appraise music, alongside performing pieces and creating their own compositions through the use of instruments and technology. From EYFS they are encouraged to develop their listening and observation skills as well as their aural memory. Every child will leave St Georges having learnt to understand and appreciate a wide range of live and recorded music drawn from different cultures, traditions, composers, musicians and contexts. Furthermore, they will have acquired the technical ability to use and understand common musical terms and notations, in line with the Music National Curriculum. As a Christian school, our music curriculum is underpinned by theological questions and Bible references offering insight into the subject.

Children at St Georges participate in a weekly music lesson. Lessons provide opportunities for children to develop practical skills and progress by listening and appraising, singing, playing, composing, and performing. We promote an enjoyment and foster interest of music through weekly singing practice as a whole school, musical workshops, and other extra- curricular opportunities. Performances take place within various school activities and are integral to the school ethos, and include song learning and music appreciation. Our musical resources and planning are used by teachers to drive children’s development within music. Every pupil will build upon the learning from prior year groups therefore developing depth of understanding and progression of skills. This serves as a base to aid and enhance our teaching, but is not intended to be rigidly adhered to. Our teachers make professional judgements about when to adapt, miss out or add additional materials where this would benefit learning. Our foundation assessment tracker allows us to use data to inform future teaching and learning. We make use of the online musical resources Music Express (KS1) and Charanga (KS2) for delivery of music across the school. The scheme also provides the necessary details, activities, accompaniments and recordings to support our music teaching. Pupils have access to a large range of musical instruments, including ukuleles, glockenspiels and other tuned instruments including: keyboard, tambourines, drums, bells and more. Our CD collection and song books are kept on the ‘drive’, and, where possible, CDs purchased for the school are copied to the network to be shared across the school. Links to other appropriate sources of recording (e.g. YouTube and Spotify etc.) are regularly shared via the school internal systems, enhancing the school’s access to a growing range of up to date music. Cross-curricular links are promoted to allow all children to deepen their understanding across the curriculum, including the use of technology, and musical genres and styles from year group specific historical, geographical and scientific contexts. Opportunities for children to visit local music venues and concerts are planned for, as well as visits from local musicians. We also make sure that strong links are kept with the local community.

The impact of our Music teaching on our children is to:

• achieve high quality outcomes
• make outstanding progress in relation to each child’s individual starting point and their progression of skills.
• be self-expressive, through being more musically attuned, and by developing an understanding of how sound is produced.
• sing, play, compose, listen and appraise in relation to their learning and the world around them.
• foster a love and enthusiasm for the subject and a potential for life- long musical study.

You can find the Music Primary National Curriculum here

You can find our curriculum here

Our Music Curriculum

EYFS

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6