Music at North Scarle Primary School

The purpose of our music curriculum is to help children have musicality (a set of inner skills that let you freely and confidently express yourself in music) and alongside that, develop a love of music. Our focus is on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding for pupils to become confident performers, composers, and listeners. Our curriculum allows children to hear music from all around the world and across generations, teaching children to respect music from all traditions and communities. We are following Charanga music scheme with additional instrumental lessons in KS2. Performance opportunities occur for the whole school once a year in a production shown to parents and wider community.

Our four key threads are our vision and weave through everything we do at North Scarle Primary School:

Our inclusive approach allows all children to ask questions and have opportunities to learn the basics of playing an instrument. We adapt our teaching to allow all children to access the music provision.   

We want our pupils to be inspired by all styles and genres of music, have a passion for music engaging with past, present and future music artists and technology. We hope our children are excited to learn and actively engage with hands on experiences.

Enrichment opportunities weaved through the curriculum enhance our pupils’ abilities to make connections with the musical world around them.

Examples are –

• Young Voices Programme
• Choir
• A yearly trip to the theatre
• Opportunity to access private music tuition through the Lincolnshire Music Service or other local services.
• A yearly whole school production
• Carefully selected musical genres and artists are introduced on a weekly basis through our assemblies.
• Opportunities to sing to the wider community

We have adapted a cohesively planned music curriculum to be aspirational so that all pupils can achieve success.  

Implementation

Curriculum design:  The Charanga Musical School Scheme provides teachers with week-by-week lesson support for each year group in the school. It is ideal for specialist and non-specialist teachers and provides lesson plans, assessment, clear progression, and engaging and exciting whiteboard resources to support every lesson. The Scheme supports all the requirements of the national curriculum. Music is taught in each class (EYFS - Y1/Y2 – Y3/Y4 and Y5/Y6) on a weekly basis. We have designed the long-term overview to allow content to come first for the younger year group in the class. We then move onto the older year groups later in the year when children will have gained more knowledge and understanding. In Class 2 and 3, the children can engage in instrumental units, this gives them an opportunity to learn how to play a tuned instrument.

Active learning: Each Unit of Work comprises the of strands of musical learning which correspond with the national curriculum for music:

1. Listening and Appraising
2. Musical Activities
   1. Warm-up Games
   2. Optional Flexible Games
   3. Singing
   4. Playing instruments
   5. Improvisation
   6. Composition
3. Performing

Cross-curricular activities: music is taught as a stand - alone lesson. However, where possible, music is incorporated into other subjects and wider curriculum. For example, in history we learn about music over the years; in science we learn about sound and the human body; and in English, we link singing fluency with reading fluency and performance of texts. Our daily assemblies incorporate a new musician every week, music from the same artist/composer is played for the duration of the week and the children are given information about them and their music.  Having such a range of music gives the children opportunities to hear different genres of music, both past and present, on a weekly basis.

Real world contexts: We look at music from all over the world, different cultures and the history of music. In our music scheme, there are opportunities to watch music being performed.

Practical experiences: Opportunities to engage in Charanga’s instrumental lessons occur in KS2. This allows children to learn to play a tuned instrument. We also have children engaging in 1:1 and 1:2 lessons weekly, delivered by a music specialist. 

Impact

By the time our Year 6 children leave for secondary school, we intend for them to have:

• The ability to play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression.
• The knowledge and skills to improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music.
• Skills to listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory.
• Understanding of staff and other musical notations.
•  Appreciation and understanding of a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians.
• An understanding of the history of music.