Music Curriculum Statement

Acorn Music

Empowering Learners...Growing Minds

 

We aim to...

Empowering Learners

• Our intention at Kidsgrove Primary is first and foremost to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music.
• Ensure that all children develop transferable skills such as team-working, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and presentation and performance skills. These skills are vital to children’s development as learners and have a wider application in their general lives outside and beyond school.
• Our children will develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music that they listen to and learn how music can be written down.

 

 

Growing Minds

• Introduce children to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities.
• We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers, and listeners.
• Ensure children develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music.
• Our scheme of work enables pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets outlined in the national curriculum.

 

Implementation

At Kidsgrove Primary School, we use the Kapow Primary Music Scheme across the school. Our scheme of work fulfils the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum (2014). The National Curriculum for Music aims to ensure that all pupils:

•  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.

 

 

The intention is first and foremost to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music. Each class teacher uses the scheme and adapts it to ensure every child can access and enjoy music within our school. Sequencing and progression are clear.

We explore music through the inter-related dimensions of music: performing, listening, composing, the history of music. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers, and listeners. Children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and un-tuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music.

 

 

 

 

 

Kapow Primary’s Music scheme which has been designed as a spiral curriculum with the following key principles in mind:

• Cyclical: Pupils return to the same skills and knowledge again and again during their time in primary school.
• Increasing depth: Each time a skill or area of knowledge is revisited it, is covered with greater depth.
• Prior knowledge: Upon returning to a skill, prior knowledge is utilised so pupils can build upon previous foundations, rather than starting again.

 

Our curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world and across generations, thereby helping them to develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music that they listen to and teaching them to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities.

Pupils are taught musical notation and how to compose music. Composing or performing using body percussion and vocal sounds is also part of the curriculum, 

which develops the understanding of musical elements without the added complexity of an instrument.

 As children progress through the school, we expect them to maintain their concentration for longer and to listen to more extended pieces of music. Children develop descriptive skills in music lessons when learning about how music can represent feelings and emotions.

We teach them the disciplined skills of recognising pulse and pitch. We often teach these together. We also teach children how to work with others to make music and how individuals combine together to make sounds. Through music, our curriculum helps children develop transferable skills such as team-working, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and presentation and performance skills. These skills are vital to children’s development as learners and have a wider application in their general lives outside and beyond school.

How is our curriculum delivered?

In accordance with the National Curriculum, we ensure that coverage of knowledge and skills is developed sequentially throughout the school.

We have adopted the Kapow Scheme (mixed year groups), to ensure that children receive quality music lessons throughout the year – we cover one unit per half-term. Music is taught as a discrete lesson usually lasting 30 - 45mins. In year 5/6 children are taught music alongside an weekly 60 minute ukulele session delivered by entrust.

Our lessons are taught with a combination of weekly sessions and focus days. We take a holistic approach to music, in which the 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 unit combines these strands within a cross-curricular topic designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically.

Kapow provides a classroom-based, participatory and inclusive approach to music learning. Throughout the scheme, children are actively involved in using and developing their singing voices, using body percussion and whole-body actions, and learning to handle and play classroom instruments effectively to create and express their own and others’ music. Children are also taught to use technology to enhance their ideas of music and creativity. Through a range of whole class, group and individual activities, children have opportunities to explore sounds, listen actively, compose and perform.

During music lessons, children are given opportunities to learn music-specific vocabulary in a meaningful context. The elements of music are taught in classroom lessons so that children are able to use the language of music to discuss it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. They will learn to recognise and name the interrelated dimensions of music - pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture and dynamics - and use these expressively in their own 

improvisations and compositions. The children are given opportunities to apply their skills and given a chance for collaboration through composition.

Lesson Delivery

Within each music session there will be the following elements:

• A clear Learning Objective with focused Success Criteria (some of which may be one or two of the Unit Success Criteria) which is used by both the teacher and the children to assess the lesson’s work:
•  A recap or introduction starter which addresses prior learning or a game. It could also include attention grabbing starters that introduce the children to the theme of the music unit.
• The children then are exposed to new learning or learning in their sequence and how it fits within our theme of work.
• The children are then prompted with various assessment questions and questions to get them thinking a little deeper about the skills they have learnt.

Over the course of a unit, the lessons taught will include performance, composition, specific listening tasks, and giving and listening to appraisal and constructive criticism. At least part of each music session involves whole class activities with the opportunity for group work.

Kapow’s Primary Music spiral curriculum allows for revisiting and consolidating skills. The lesson plans and resources help children build on prior knowledge alongside introducing new skills and challenge. Children progress in terms of tacking more complex tasks and doing more simpler tasks better, as well as developing understanding and knowledge of the history of music, staff, and other musical notations, as well as the interrelated dimensions of music and more.

Planning

Our medium-term plans shows which of the units cover each of the national curriculum attainment targets, as well as the strands within it, and which units cover which development matters statements and early learning goals for both prime and specific areas in EYFS.

The medium-term plans also detail the progression of skills and knowledge within each year group to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of EYFS, key stage 1 and key stage 2.

Individual lesson plans include guidance on differentiation to allow all children to access the music lessons and subject specific guidance is provided for teaching staff to allow non-music specialists to teach with confidence.

Adaptation

We recognise that there are children of widely different musical abilities in all classes, so we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child.

We achieve this in a variety of ways by:

• Setting open-ended tasks which could have a variety of responses;
• Setting tasks of increasing difficulty (not all children complete all tasks);
• Grouping children by ability in the room and setting different tasks to each ability group;
• Providing resources depending on the ability of the child;
• Using classroom assistants to support the work of individuals or groups of children.

SEND

We will strive to remove barriers to learning for pupils with SEND. Adopting a positive and proactive approach will ensure that children with SEND are able to express themselves and take an active part in lessons. Explicit instructions and scaffolding will enable all pupils to achieve and succeed in music.

Impact

Assessment

On-going Assessment for Learning (AfL) practices within class and group sessions, including the sharing of and reference being made to Learning Objective and Success Criteria and self and peer assessments of understanding, outcomes and progress.

Photographs or video evidence is recorded on Showbie for each lesson to ensure teachers can assess the children progress. Children who are showing a greater depth understanding are also pushed further and signposted to external musical programmes.

Assessments are used diagnostically by teachers to evaluate learning and inform teaching and by teachers and senior leaders within the Accountability Process to evaluate individual and groups of children’s standards and achievements and provision and to inform future provision and school development.

At the end of the year, the teacher makes a summary judgement about the musical skills and development of each pupil in relation to the National Curriculum or Foundation Stage Framework.

Formative assessments are recorded on our foundation subject assessment trackers. Pupils in the Foundation Stage each have a Foundation Stage Profile where teachers record their progress in the Creative Arts specific area.

Monitoring  

The Music Lead and Senior Leadership team are responsible for the monitoring of reading and the standards achieved by pupils. Monitoring takes the form of:

• Lesson observations 
• Resource scrutiny 
• Floor book and Showbie scans
• Discussion with pupils and class teachers

As an academy trust we are fortunate to be able to call on the support of other Music leads and specialist teachers. Through the use of hubs and professional discussions of planning, lessons and evidence gathering, we can be sure that progress is made across all year groups. If progress is not being made, support is immediate, and steps are provided to ensure all pupils achieve and make progress.

 

Music Documents