Music

Curriculum Intent

At Manor Primary School, music is pivotal to igniting imagination and deeper thinking. Offering a range of genres, styles and creative outlets through music technology, music opens doorways to new passions for our students. As a school, we use music to learn new technical language, open our imaginations into new worlds and connect with future careers paths ranging from musicians, production and writing. All of our children will be given the chance to apply skill and given a chance for collaboration through singing, listening, composition and performance. 

Implementation:

Here at Manor, we deliver music to the standards of the National Curriculum. We deliver this through Charanga and their scheme of work. Charanga provides not only the Original Scheme but a variety of ‘Freestyle’ lessons, exploring different genres of music further. It also offers access to the sound boards, music mixing and other music technologies.

Music lessons are broken down into half-termly units and an emphasis is placed on musical vocabulary, allowing children to talk about pieces of music using the correct terminology. Each unit of work has an on-going musical learning focus and lessons usually follow a specific learning sequence:

• Listen and Appraise

• Musical Activities (including pulse and rhythm)

• Singing and Voice

• Playing instruments

• Improvisation / Composition

• Perform and Share

LINK TO CHARANGA: https://charanga.com/site/

We encourage the use of music within multiple subjects throughout the school, in their Learning Journeys, English, Phonics, performances and celebrations. 

Within the EYFS setting, music is an integral part of children’s learning journey. Rhyme and rhythm are utilised throughout the learning of phonics, handwriting and mathematics. Children learn a wide range of songs and rhymes and develop skills for performing together. Singing and music making opportunities are used frequently to embed learning, develop musical awareness and to demonstrate how music can be used to express feelings. 

At Manor, we have weekly singing assemblies with our music team. The children get the opportunity to experience live music assemblies and celebrate music of different genres and backgrounds. 

Music lessons in school also come from outside opportunities, for example, singing, guitar and keyboard. 

Impact:

Our music curriculum works towards the development and progression of current skills that support embedding them in a range of subjects. We focus on progression of knowledge, language, skills and knowledge of world music. 

If children are achieving the knowledge and skills in lessons, then they are deemed to be making good or better progress. We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Pupil discussions and interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).

• Governor monitoring with the Music Coordinator.

• Annual reporting and tracking of standards across the curriculum.

• Photo and video evidence of the pupils’ practical learning and performances.

• Use of the assessment tools provided within the Charanga scheme.

• Dedicated music leader time.

The impact of our music curriculum is also measured in the uptake of our music after school clubs and uptake of additional music 1:1 teaching.

National Curriculum:

The musical progression through KS1 and KS2 is demonstrated in the below links. The instrumental work is differentiated allowing children to move through the relevant parts as they need to.

NC link

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

Progression of skills