St Giles C of E Academy

St Giles C of E Academy our music lessons reflects the culture and society we live in, and so the teaching and learning of music enables children to better understand the world they live in. We provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop the skills to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms, and to begin to make judgements about the quality of music.

Our music curriculum ensures students sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in the classroom activities as well as the weekly singing assemblies, composer of the week, various concerts and performances and those children attending the school choir. The elements of music are taught in the classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to dissect it, and understand how it is made, played and appreciated

 Singing lies at the heart of good music teaching. Our teaching focuses on developing the children’s ability to sing in tune and with other people. Through singing songs, children learn about the structure and organisation of music.

Intent

Music is a unique way of communicating that can inspire and motivate children. It is a vehicle for personal expression and it can play an important part in the personal development of people. At St Giles C of E Academy our music lessons reflects the culture and society we live in, and so the teaching and learning of music enables children to better understand the world they live in. Besides being a creative and enjoyable activity, music can also be a highly academic and demanding subject. It also plays an important part in helping children feel part of our community. We provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop the skills to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms, and to begin to make judgements about the quality of music.

The aims of music teaching are to enable children to:

• know and understand how sounds are made and then organised into musical structures;
• know how music is made through a variety of instruments;
• know how music is composed and written down;
• know how music is influenced by the time, place and purpose for which it was written;
• develop the interrelated skills of performing, composing and appreciating music.
• 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.

Implementation

At St Giles C of E Academy we make music an enjoyable learning experience. We encourage children to participate in a variety of musical experiences through which we aim to build up the confidence of all children. Our music curriculum ensures students sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in the classroom activities as well as the weekly singing assemblies, composer of the week, various concerts and performances and those children attending the school choir. The elements of music are taught in the classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to dissect it, and understand how it is made, played and appreciated

Singing lies at the heart of good music teaching. Our teaching focuses on developing the children’s ability to sing in tune and with other people. Through singing songs, children learn about the structure and organisation of music.

We teach children to listen and to appreciate different forms of music. As children get older, 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. We also begin to teach them musical notation and how to compose music in different ways.

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.

Impact

 At St Giles C of E Academy the majority of work produced in our music lessons is practical. Children share their work through class assemblies, during weekly singing assemblies and in Key Stage performances. In addition each half term staff record a whole class performance or complete a piece of work in topic books to demonstrate the work that has been carried out for that particular half term. All recordings are saved onto the staff shared drive in the music folder.

Children in KS2 will have additional lessons, which aims to teach all children an instrument such as the ukulele or recorder. We also have a school choir for KS2 pupils who perform in public on a number of occasions throughout the year.

We use the Music Scheme 'Sparkyard' to support our teaching. See below for our music progression map.