Music

2024/25 Long Term Overview: Click here

Aims and Objectives

At St Charles’, Music is taught as part of our broad and balanced curriculum, in line with the school’s Curriculum Intent Statement:

Through our curriculum, children are encouraged to “Bring Forth Christ” and reflect our school’s values in all that they do. We want to utilise resources the surrounding area offers whilst also learning from its rich history. Developing greater links with our parish and local community will help us achieve this and also strengthen our faith. We will cater for the needs and desires of all our children by offering varied and experiential learning opportunities whilst developing an awareness of their responsibilities to the environment as future global citizens. Challenging each child through our inclusive curriculum is important to us but we also want them to learn from their mistakes through the development of their resilience. Finally, we want the children to demonstrate pride in all they do and develop clear aspirations for the future based on their knowledge of the wider world.

Through our Music curriculum at St Charles’, all children are given the opportunity 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.

Purpose of Music

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. At St Charles’, the purpose of study is to provide a high quality music education which engages and inspires 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 a range of musical styles.

Curriculum

Early Years

In EYFS, music interweaves through all areas of learning and development. Music can be a way of exploring, communicating and responding to experience. Making music with others can contribute to social development, e.g. two or more children making music with pots, pans or traditional instruments. This interaction with others, whether this be with one other person or a group, is personal to each individual and is often an expression of feelings. Music is seen as a core component of children’s early and contributes to broad, balanced and rounded experiences in early childhood and beyond.

Key Stage One

By the end of Key Stage 1, pupils should be taught to:

• use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes
• play tuned and untuned instruments musically
• listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music
• experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music. 

Key Stage Two

By the end of Key Stage 2, pupils should be taught to:

• play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression
• improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music
• listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory
• use and understand staff and other musical notations
• appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians
• develop an understanding of the history of music.

Planning

Teaching Approaches/Pedagogy

At St Charles’, teachers follow the Charanga Musical School scheme of work. The Charanga scheme provides teachers with week-by-week lesson support for each year group in the school, with plans that should be modified to meet the needs of individual classes and individual children. In line with the curriculum for music and guidance from Ofsted, this Scheme moves away from the previous levels and learning objective/outcome concepts to an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning. Ofsted have stated that “We will not always know the learning outcomes” so, instead of segregated learning objectives at the start of each lesson, the interrelated dimensions of music weave through the units to encourage the development of musical skills as the learning progresses through listening and appraising, differing musical activities (including creating and exploring) and performing.

Each Unit of Work comprises the strands of musical learning which correspond with the national curriculum for music:

1) Listening and Appraising

2) Musical Activities (Warm-up Games, Optional Flexible Games, Singing, Playing instruments, Improvisation, Composition)

3) Performing

We believe that music enriches the lives of people, and so we wish to involve as many children as possible in musical activities. We have a school choir which we encourage all children from Y2-6 to join. The choir meets on a weekly basis and, although its primary aim is to enable children to enjoy singing together, it also performs in public on a number of occasions throughout the year. We provide opportunities throughout the year for budding musicians to perform for the school community. This includes solo and ensemble performances as part of assemblies and concerts. This recognises their achievements and celebrates their success.

SEN and More Able children

The Charanga Musical School has a designated SEND section with a support scheme of work for those children who cannot access the main scheme. Lessons are modified to provide a range of age-appropriate, accessible materials to underpin and support children with various learning needs. Lyrics are written to be easy to enunciate and remember, and also to provide the main prompts for many activities. More Able children are encouraged to take up learning a musical instrument.