Curriculum Statement: Music

Intent

At Gisburn, we want to ensure that music is a joyful, engaging, and inclusive experience that enables every child to develop their musical potential and develop an appreciation of music that is deeply personal to them. We inspire our children to become confident musicians who can enjoy exploring, listening, performing, reading, and making music irrespective of age, ability, background, or musical experiences.

We believe music helps to grow our hearts and minds through direct teaching of the progression of knowledge and skills, as well as bringing our community together through community performances. It is our vision to foster a passion and appreciation for many different forms of music, we help students to develop their own creative expression, and discover and nurture their own talents. We aim to increase opportunities for children to have hands on learning experiences and will always encourage children who wish to pursue music further for enjoyment or a future career when leaving school.

Implementation

Music at Gisburn Primary School begins in our EYFS. In the early years, children explore music through their daily continuous provision. Throughout the EYFS curriculum, there are regular opportunities for children take part in singing and learning songs. They listen and learn rhymes, poems and respond to what they hear with relevant questions, comments and actions and are exposed to musical vocabulary. The children leave Reception more than prepared for their musical journey to continue in Y1.

From Y1-6, through our mastery music curriculum using Charanga, children play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts using their voices and play musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression as they progress through the school. The children develop critical engagement through listening and appraising, singing, composing, playing and performing. Charanga lessons are planned in sequences to provide children with the opportunities to review, remember, deepen and apply their understanding.

We use ambitious and subject-specific language and children learn a wide range of musical vocabulary and use this within discussions when appraising or explaining their compositions.

Charanga Musical School enables children to understand musical concepts through a repetition-based approach to learning. Learning about the same musical concept through different musical activities enables a more secure, deeper learning and mastery of musical skills.

The strands of musical learning are part of the learning spiral. Over time, children can both develop new musical skills and concepts, and re-visit established musical skills and concepts. Mastery means both a deeper understanding of musical skills and concepts and learning something new.

Interrelated Dimensions

All musical learning in this scheme is built around the Interrelated Dimensions of Music: pulse, rhythm, pitch, tempo, dynamics, timbre, texture, structure and notation. These dimensions are at the centre of all the learning.

Children use their retrieval practice to embed previous learning and to connect it to their new learning in that session through direct teacher-led discussion.

Throughout KS1 and KS2 the children explore both tuned and untuned musical instruments. This enables the children to build on the technical skills of notation reading, experiment and improvise with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.  Children identify and develop their own talents and passions, as well as build upon core character strengths such as self- confidence, self-reflection, and a love of learning. Children develop and share their opinions and preferences and appreciate how these may differ from those of other people. They can identify the dimensions of the music they listen to and comprehend how each of the elements build upon each other to create a cohesive piece of music.

In addition to our music curriculum, to inspire our future musicians we expose them to aspirational and inspirational opportunities such as: watching live bands/performances, performing to live audiences in class assemblies, choir, weekly singing assemblies, and additional music lessons. This enables music to be accessed by all children in our fully inclusive, creative school.

Impact

Assessment

Assessment of the music curriculum should consider the ‘whole child.’ This includes observing behaviour such as engagement, posture, enjoyment and expression because this is what make music fun!

As the Charanga Curriculum is an integrated, practical, exploratory and child led approach we should be aware that the skills and knowledge taught are built upon and revisited constantly over the primary years. In order to assess at a class level it is important that we keep this in mind. As each lesson comprises of the key strands of musical learning from the national curriculum we should aim to assess each area across the 5 or 6 lessons which consist of a unit of work.

As a result of the music provision at Gisburn Primary School, pupils gain an enjoyment and appreciation for music that will last beyond their time at school, whether as a listener, creator, or performer. The knowledge and skills gained during their time at Gisburn will allow them to move forward with a solid foundation to develop their creativity and expression in music throughout their future lives.