Purpose of study

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high-quality music education should engage and inspire 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 the best in the musical canon.

Intent - What Do We Aspire For Our Children?

Our music curriculum at St Anne's is supported by the Kapow music scheme of work. The intention is, first and foremost, to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers and listeners.
St Anne’s music curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world and across the generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities. This further underpins our children’s understanding of British Values.
Children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tunes and untuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music. They will develop an understanding an understanding and cultural context of the music they listen to and learn how music can be written down.
Through music, St Anne’s music 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 the school and are a key aspect of our St Anne’s curriculum drivers.
St Anne’s music curriculum enables pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets and is aligned with the National Curriculum aims.

 By the end of Year 6 at St Anne's, as musicians, our pupils will be able to do the following:

• Appreciate a variety of different styles of discuss and express their opinions with confidence.
• Understand the historical context of various different genres of music and key composers and musicians.
• Recognise a variety of instruments and their contribution to different genres of music.
• Have experience of playing from musical notation and recognise different aspects of musical notation.
• Understand the interrelated dimensions of music such as pitch, rhythm, dynamics, pulse, tempo, timbre, structure, texture and notation.
• Develop their own ideas musically using the interrelated dimensions of music.
• Appreciate the musical potential of the human voice.
• Perform music with others.
• Compose their own musical pieces in a variety of styles and evaluate these.
• Understand the potential for music to express emotion and enhance our wellbeing.

Characteristics of a Musician

• A rapidly widening repertoire which they use to create original, imaginative, fluent and distinctive composing and performance work. 
• A musical understanding underpinned by high levels of aural perception, internalisation and knowledge of music, including high or rapidly developing levels of technical expertise. 
• Very good awareness and appreciation of different musical traditions and genres.
• An excellent understanding of how musical provenance - the historical, social and cultural origins of music - contributes to the diversity of musical styles.
• The ability to give precise written and verbal explanations, using musical terminology effectively, accurately and appropriately.
• A passion for and commitment to a diverse range of musical activities.

End points

By then end of EYFS, children will:

Be able to sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs, perform songs, rhymes, poems and try to move in time with the music. Express their ideas and feelings about music, explore and engage in music making. Use props in a performance on their own or in a group.

By the end of key stage 1, children will:

1. Use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes.

2. Play tuned and untuned instruments musically.

3. Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music.

4. Experiment with, create, select, and combine sounds using the interrelated dimensions of music.

By the end of key stage 2, children will:

Play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control, and expression.

1. Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music

2. Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory

3. Use and understand staff and other musical notations

4. Appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians

5. Develop an understanding of the history of music.

Any child working below their age-related expectation, will receive additional support and pre-teaching. This will enable all children to build the skills and knowledge needed to bridge the gap between themselves and their peers enabling them to reach their full potential.

Implementation- How We Will Deliver the Curriculum

At St Anne's we have subscribed to the KAPOW music scheme to support our music instruction.

Our provision takes an 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

In EYFS, in addition to discreet music activities, children are supported in their use of music as part of child-led play, whether singing songs, listening to music, dancing or playing instruments. Thus allowing them to express their creativity and emotions, as well as reaching a deeper level of musical understanding.

In years one to six, each unit comprises of five lessons which combine the strands below within a cross-curricular topic designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Over the course of the scheme, children will be taught how to sing fluently and expressively, and play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control. 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 whole class instrumental lessons allow lower key-stage two children to develop their expertise in using a tuned instrument (recommendation for model music curriculum).

The Kapow music scheme follows the spiral curriculum model where previous skills and knowledge and returned to and built upon. Children progress in terms of tackling more complex tasks and doing more simple 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.

Impact - How Do We Know our Curriculum is Effective?

The impact of the St Anne's music curriculum is continually monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Formative assessments are made through observations of children's performance in lessons (including in-lesson performance videos), questioning and mini-quizzes and other retrieval activities. Formative assessments are further made against children's recall from key knowledge and vocabulary gained from knowledge organisers

At the end of each unit there is a performance element to support teachers to make a summative assessment of children's learning.

The spiral design of the curriculum supports children to deepen their knowledge, skills and understanding as they move through school.

Aspirations For The Future

Pupils develop an understanding of how subjects and specific skills are linked to future jobs.

Here are some of the jobs you could aspire to do in the future as a Musician:

• Theatre performer
• Songwriter
• Casting director
• RAF Musician
• Performer 

For more careers, please visit First Careers.