Our Federation Music Curriculum

Rationale
At Calstock and Stoke Climsland we recognise music as a highly valued form of creativity and an exciting part of the curriculum. By providing a range of opportunities throughout school, we aim to engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music, thus increasing their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.

Intent
It is our intention that as pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, listen and evaluate across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions, and musical genres. We are committed to ensuring children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community and are able to use their musical skills, knowledge, and experiences to involve themselves in music, in a variety of different contexts. We are also committed to giving children a broad range of opportunities to take part in individual, class and whole-school musical performances and activities.

Implementation
Every year group is provided with week-by-week lessons in Music. We follow ‘Charanga Musical School Scheme’ which is appropriate for specialist and non-specialist teachers as it provides lesson plans, assessment, clear progression, and engaging and exciting whiteboard resources to support every lesson. We chose this scheme as it supports all the requirements of the national curriculum. Charanga is in line with the curriculum for music and guidance from Ofsted as the scheme provides an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning. The related dimensions of music are embedded within the units and encourage the development of musical skills as the learning progress through listening and appraising, differing musical activities (including creating and exploring) and performing.

In addition to weekly music lessons, children will be given opportunities to broaden their musical skills and knowledge through singing assemblies, special celebration assemblies (Easter, Harvest, Christmas) and through various concerts and performances across the year. Musical skills are further developed through the learning of musical instruments, individually, in groups and as whole classes using First Access funding. In these lessons, children learn how to play an instrument, understand the principle of creating musical notes, and learn to read basic music notation.

Impact

As a result of our music curriculum and provision we expect children at Calstock and Stoke Climsland to be able to:

Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music

Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated

Sing, create and compose music

We also expect children at Calstock to demonstrate a love of music and a genuine appreciation of a wide variety of different musical styles.

By the end of EYFS, children will be taught to;

Listen carefully to rhymes and songs, paying attention to how
they sound.

Learn rhymes, poems and songs.

Combine different movements with ease and fluency.

Explore, use and refine a variety of artistic effects to express their ideas and feelings.

Return to and build on their previous learning, refining ideas and developing their ability to represent them.

Create collaboratively, sharing ideas, resources and skills.

Listen attentively, move to and talk about music, expressing their feelings and responses.

Sing in a group or on their own, increasingly matching the pitch and following the melody.

Explore and engage in music making and dance, performing solo and in groups.

In Key Stage 1, children will be taught to:

Use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes

Play tuned and un-tuned instruments musically

Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music

Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high quality live and recorded music

In Key Stage 2, children will 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

Appreciate and understand a wide range of high quality music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians

Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music

Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory

Use and understand staff and other musical notations

Develop an understanding of the history of music

This impact will be monitored through:

Performances within class and to a wider audience

Learning Conversations – pupils are able to talk confidently about their learning in music to adults and to each other.

Images and videos of the children’s practical learning.

Self-, peer- and group-assessment using Charanga assessment materials.

Lesson visits.

Ongoing assessment checklists based on objectives from the half-termly subject progression