Our Music curriculum is designed to follow a sequence that builds upon and revisits previous learning. To ensure that pupils develop a secure knowledge, it is organised into a cyclical and progressive model that provides breadth and balance, ensuring the development of musical concepts, knowledge and skills alongside a love for music.
We provide purposeful opportunities for all children to create, play, sing, perform and enjoy music, to develop the skills, to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms and genres, and to begin to make judgements and evaluate quality of music.
They explore how music is created, produced and communicated with increased complexity over time, including through the interrelated dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.
EYFS
- EYFS follows the Early Years Foundation Stage framework.
- Through Expressive Arts, children are taught to sing songs, make music and dance. Children are given opportunities to experiment with ways of changing sound and develop an understanding of pulse, rhythm and pitch.
- They are encouraged to use everyday objects to make music and create sound and to experiment with sound using objects made from different materials such as wood, metal and plastic.
KS1
- Music at KS1 is divided into 3 strands.
- Singing – pupils are taught about pitch, range, response to visual directions, tempo and dynamics.
- Composing and improvising – pupils are taught about rhythmic and pitch pattern, how musical notation represents sounds and how to create and improvise music.
- Musicianship and performing – pupils learn pulse and beat linked to tempo. Pupils are taught rhythm and introduced to dot notation in order to recognise and match notes on a simple instrument.
KS2
- Music at KS2 builds on learning in KS1 and is divided into 5 strands.
- Singing – pupils are taught to sing in rounds, sing in unison, sing different time signatures and perform songs.
- Improvising – pupils are taught to structure their musical ideas, refine the types of sounds made (staccato/legato), create music with a beginning/middle/end, make compositional decisions on their improvisations, incorporate dynamics and improvise in collaboration with other.
- Composing – pupils are taught to compose song accompaniments, combine known rhythmic notation to create rising and falling phrases, composing music to a specific mood or desire effect, use minor and major chords, explore more advanced features of notation and time signatures by composing melodies enhanced with rhythmic or chord accompaniment.
- Instrumental performance – pupils are taught to play and perform using tuned percussion or melodic instrument, play melodies following staff notation, develop the skill of playing by ear and engage with other through ensemble playing or singing.
- Reading notation – pupils are taught to read music, follow rhythmic scores, read and perform pitch notation within an octave understand getting slower and faster and dynamic contrasts and read and play from notation a four-bar phrase.
Pupils are offered a wide range of enriching and engaging experiences which are designed to develop their knowledge and understanding of the world around them and the concepts taught within Music. Enrichment opportunities are a secure enhancement to core provision through choir, one to one music tuition and engagement in a wide variety of concert and performance opportunities.
