Subject Leader: Mrs Watson

At Lindale CE Primary School, we believe that all children should have a variety of experiences and opportunities in music including performing, composing and appraising pieces. We are always trying to make our music curriculum cross-curricular by linking lessons to topics and using ICT to enhance.

We have a range of musical instruments to use across all year groups. In KS2, children join up with hundreds of other schools at the Manchester Arena to perform in the largest school choir concert in the world! For this, we learn a range of songs paired with dance moves. All children take part in learning and performing songs in our Christmas performance each year; those children in year 3, 4, 5& 6 also have the opportunity to sing solos or in a small group.

Music is a key part of our collective worship. We have a singing worship each week as well as singing every day linked to our worship topic.

We have an outside guitar teacher who runs a session once a week for those children who want to learn the guitar. We also often offer choir as an after school club – this offers further experiences such as singing in church.

We provide our pupils with additional opportunities to shine and share their talents with their peers. See an example of this on our Facebook page here.

We follow the National Curriculum for Music:

Purpose of study

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.

Aims

The national curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:

• 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.

Attainment targets

By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study.

Subject content

Key stage 1

Pupils should be taught to:

• 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

Pupils should be taught 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.

Pupils should be taught 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.