Music

At Bishop Martin CE Primary School our Guiding LIGHT Curriculum is built around the National Curriculum, enriched to reflect the children and community we teach.

We strive to provide a curriculum that is underpinned by our Christian Values, which are embedded in the life and work of our school, and to allow all our children to 'Let their Light Shine'. 

Let Your Light Shine Before Others So They May See Your Good Deeds' (Matthew 5.16)  ​

 

National Curriculum - 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. 

Music is a distinctive form of communication that can inspire and motivate children. It serves as a medium for personal expression and significantly contributes to individual growth. Music mirrors the culture and society we inhabit, making its teaching and learning essential for children to better understand their environment. Beyond being a creative and enjoyable pursuit, music is also an academically challenging subject. It fosters a sense of community among children, offering them opportunities to create, play, perform, and enjoy music. Through music, children develop the skills to appreciate diverse musical genres and start forming judgments about musical quality. 

 

The aims of the 2014 National Curriculum are for our pupils to: 

  • 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 inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations. 

 

Intent 

Our Music Curriculum intends to provide the children with a broad and balanced curriculum that meets the needs of all learning in our school.

Through high-quality delivery we aim to ensure children:

  • Are confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically. 

  • Show an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and understand how music influenced by the wider culture  

  • Understand the various ways that music can be written down to support performing and composing activities  

  • Demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music  

  • Meet the end of key stage expectations set out by the National Curriculum  

 

Implementation

Curriculum Planning

At Bishop Martin 'Kapow Scheme of Work' is used to support the planning an delivery of Music. 

Each five-lesson unit integrates various strands within a cross-curricular topic designed to capture pupils' imaginations and encourage enthusiastic exploration of music. Children will learn to sing fluently and expressively, and to play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control. They will be taught to recognize and name the interrelated dimensions of music—pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture, and dynamics—and to use these elements expressively in their own improvisations and compositions. 

We cover all the requirements of the National Curriculum; listening and appraising, performing and composing.  Musical sound is the ‘target language’ of teaching and learning, with talking and writing about music supporting, rather than driving, the development of pupils’ musical understanding.  As music is principally a spiral system of learning, our children enhance and develop skills taught in previous years which enable them to grow in confidence and understanding, and promote self-directed learning in areas such as performance and composition. Our Music Curriculum is thorough and progressive, developing pupils’ aural awareness and musical understanding.   

Bishop Martin’s Music scheme takes a holistic approach to music, in which individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences: 

  • Performing  

  • Listening  

  • Composing  

  • The history of music  

  • The inter-related dimensions of music  

Each year group will receive a forty-five music lesson per week. In each lesson children will actively participate in musical activities drawn from a range of style and traditions, developing their musical skills and understanding of how music works. Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent task, paired and group work as well as improvisation and teacher-led performance. Lesson are hands on and incorporate movement and dance elements.  

 

Music Subject Overview

 

Impact

The impact of Music is measured in a variety of ways:

  • teacher/pupil conversations about their ideas and understanding 

  • analysing errors and picking up on misconceptions  

  • asking questions and listening to answers  

  • facilitating and listening to discussions  

  • making observations  

Music is assessed each half- term against the objectives from each unit, usually as a result of the children producing a final piece/composition. Teachers use this to inform their judgements on askEddi (school assessment system) each half term.  

 

Music Development Plan 24/25