"Where words fail, music speaks."
Hans Christian Anderson
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.
Music teaching at Kingswood ensures that all pupils 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. They have the opportunity to 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. Children should 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
The teaching of music will cover:
Improvise and Compose
Sing and play
Listen and appraise
We ensure that our music teaching engages and inspires our pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As our pupils progress, we see them develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.
As part of our teaching we strive to provide children with the skills needed to be a musician, which include being analytical, being able to persevere, listening, communicate effectively with others and to have a sense of rhythm. We encourage children to participate in a variety of musical experiences through which we aim to build up the confidence of all children. Our teaching focuses on developing our children’s ability to sing in tune both on their own and as part of a group. We teach them to listen and appreciate different forms of music and provide them with the vocabulary to effectively participate in discussions based on their own opinion of different pieces of music. We encourage our children to use their analytical skills in music lessons when learning about how music can represent feelings and emotions, critically engaging both in the work of composers, their own and their peers work.
All children are given the opportunity to experience a wide variety of high quality learning activities which include improvising and composing, singing and playing, listening and appraising.
This is achieved by playing and singing, performing with others, composing and arranging, listening to and appraising musical styles from all cultures, developing a sense of pitch, timbre, rhythm, tempo, dynamics; developing ideas of notation and using music as a means of self expression and a source of pleasure.
All children from Early Years to Year 6 access weekly curriculum music lessons either delivered by our specialist or by their class teacher from a published scheme of work. Children in KS1 also access weekly singing assemblies.
Pupils are given opportunities to perform through annual music concerts, in workshare assemblies, Year 6 end of year productions and in Christmas performances.
We are committed to widening children's opportunities to develop skills in music through access to subsidised peripatetic instrumental teaching. The offer varies across sites but information can be found from school offices.
In addition to the music curriculum, we seek to expose children to a wide range of recorded music from a variety of cultural and musical traditions through assemblies and in classrooms and we make cross-curricular links to the music scheme wherever possible.
We seek opportunities to take children to live performances where possible as well as invite performers to come into school, such as the Cavatina Chamber Ensembles.
SING UP Scheme of work
In years 1,2,3,5 and 6 class teachers deliver lessons from the Sing Up Music Scheme. Sing Up aims for every child to have access to high quality, practical and engaging musical experiences. The aim is for all children to develop the self-confidence, skills, knowledge and understanding to develop a life-long love of music, whilst also providing a foundation that enables them to take music further should they wish. Sing Up music is designed and written by subject specialists. It sets out the skills, knowledge and understanding to be gained by all pupils at each stage of learning.
Music in EYFS
Music in EYFS is taught by our music specialist. We believe a strong foundation in musicianship is key to successful musical learning in key stages 1 and 2. Within these lessons we adopt the Kodaly method (5 principles - Learning by singing, hand signs, rhythmic proficiency, collaboration, cultural connections) and the Dalcroze method (whereby music is experienced and expressed through movement) in the planning and delivery. For more on these approaches click here.
Ukulele in Year 4
Music in y4 (and y3 for sites with mixed year groups) is also taught by our music specialist. In this year, music learning takes the form of weekly whole class ukulele lessons. This ensures that every child in all our schools has the opportunity to learn an instrument for a year. Learning the ukulele offers the unique experience of being able to sing whilst playing, enabling ensemble opportunities and more collaborative opportunities than wind instruments such as the recorder might. Whilst all ukuleles are provided by the school, should your child wish to practice at home and pursue the instrument these are relatively cheap to buy.
Evidence of learning is dependent on the lesson outcome; year group and the knowledge and skills being developed. It could be in the form of a performance, discussion, photographs, practising, pupil voice or teacher voice.
Subject leaders will conduct learning walks, planning scrutiny and pupil interviews to measure the impact of our teaching, based on how much children can remember.
Subject leaders will moderate the planning, and outcomes from our setting to ensure that standards are meeting or exceeding the expectations to ensure that standards are exceeding the expectations of the National Curriculum.