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.