Aspire to be more
Intent:
At St Anne’s Primary School we make music an enjoyable learning experience.
We encourage all children to participate in a variety of musical experiences
through which we aim to build up their love of music, self- confidence and sense
of achievement.
Our teaching focuses on developing the children’s ability to, sing in tune and with
other people, play tuned and untuned musical instruments with increasing control,
fluency and expression and listen critically to a wide range of music from
different periods, genres, styles and traditions.
As children progress through the school they will increasingly understand and
explore how music is created, produced and communicated through the
interrelated dimensions of music: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre,
texture, structure and musical notation. By Key stage 2 children will begin to
improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the interrelated
dimensions of music.
Implementation:
We teach music in Reception classes as an integral part of the topic work
covered during the year. In the Early Years, music contributes to a child’s
development in the area of expressive arts and design. Key stage 1 and 2
children are taught music by their class teacher largely in 3 half termly blocks
although some aspects of music learning are ongoing throughout the year.
We use Charanga (an on line resource) to support our music teaching as it is a
very clear and comprehensive scheme of work which covers all the national
curriculum requirements in a full and progressive way. Instrumental learning
(playing the recorder and glockenspiel) is taught explicitly and progressively
using the charanga units of work. However, we do not follow the scheme strictly
as we prefer to link our music teaching to what is being taught across the
curriculum. Resources from the scheme are chosen specifically to support topic
work.
Across the school we choose pieces of music from the Charanga Listening
centre to encourage active listening to music from different genres and eras
on a weekly basis. The listening centre also provides music which is selected for
use in a variety of lessons and activities to create, mood, atmosphere and to aid
concentration.
Children throughout the school sing on a daily basis in assemblies and during
collective worship times. We have a singing practice once fortnight and children
in years 3 to 6 are given the opportunity to join the choir. The school choir take
part in an annual event ‘Sing Together’ where they are able to perform in front
of large audiences. They also sing carols in the community at Christmas time.
Singing plays a prominent part in all school productions at Christmas, Easter and
at the End of the School year. Children are also given the opportunity to sing or
play an instrument solo or in small groups during our Lentern talent contest.
At our school we teach music to all children, whatever their ability. Music forms
part of the school curriculum policy to provide a broad and balanced education
to all children. Assessment against the National Curriculum allows us to consider
each child’s attainment and progress against expectations. When progress falls
significantly outside the expected range, the child may have SEN. We look at a
range of factors, including classroom organisation, teaching materials, teaching
style, and differentiation, so that we can take some additional or different
action to enable the child to learn more effectively. This ensures that our
teaching is matched to the child’s needs.
Teachers assess children’s work in music by making informal judgements as they
observe them during lessons.
Additional evidence may be gained during school performances or other relevant
events, and may be presented in the form of recordings or photographs. The
attainment of each child is indicated annually in the end of year report.