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Intent

At Taddington and Priestcliffe, we have designed our curriculum with the intent that our children will become resilient, independent, well rounded learners who will have the building blocks to become successful, moral adults, live healthy lifestyles, and take opportunities beyond their horizons.

 

The National Curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music

• Be taught to sing, create and compose music

• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated

 

At Taddington,  the intention is that children gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions, and musical genres. Our objective at Taddington is to develop a passion and enjoyment of the subject, as well as an understanding and acceptance of the validity and importance of all types of music, and an unbiased respect for the role that music may play in any person’s life. We are committed to ensuring children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community and are able to use their musical skills, knowledge, and experiences to involve themselves in music, in a variety of different contexts.

 

Implementation

The music curriculum ensures students sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in the classroom activities as well as the weekly singing assemblies, various concerts and performances, learning to play instruments and joining the school choir.

 

The elements of music are taught in the classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to dissect it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. In the classroom, students learn how to play African drums, recorder, ukulele and hand bells.  In doing so, they understand the  principle of creating notes, as well as how to read basic music notation. They also learn how to compose focusing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. Composing or performing using body percussion and vocal sounds is also part of the curriculum, which develops the understanding of musical elements without the added complexity of an instrument.

 

Each unit of work has an on-going musical learning focus and lessons includes:

Listening and Appraising  

Musical Activities (including pulse and rhythm)  

Singing and Voice  

Playing instruments: Improvisation / Composition  

Performing and Sharing

 

Performance is at the heart of musical teaching and learning at Taddington  and pupils participate in a range of performances during their school ‘career’. These include the Nativity (KS1), Harvest festival, Christmas carol service and Easter service, as well as  a Leavers performance (Year 6). Pupils also take part in class assemblies and singing assemblies. Pupils who are confident are encouraged to perform in solo performances. Parents are invited and welcomed to watch all of these performances whether at school or in church. 

 

Alongside our curriculum provision for music, pupils also have the opportunity to participate in additional 1:1 music teaching to learn a musical instrument with peripatetic teachers. Currently we are offering piano lessons to pupils.

 

Pupils also have the opportunity to join the school choir which is led by our Y6 children and overseen by the Music champion. The school choir is open to all children on a weekly basis. Pupils in the school choir meet  at lunchtime and focus on  developing their singing skills while having fun!

 

Impact

At Taddington, children have the opportunity to discover areas of musical strength, as well as areas they might like to explore and grow in confidence. Music will aim to develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to students individually, as well as cultures from across the world. Children will be encouraged to enjoy music, in a variety of ways across the key stages- either as listener, creator or performer.

• They can dissect music and comprehend its parts.

• They can sing and feel a pulse.

• They have an understanding of how to further develop skills less known to them, should they ever develop an interest in their lives.

 

Our music Curriculum is planned to demonstrate progression and build on and embed current skills. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills in the different musical components and teaching of vocabulary also forms part of the units of work. If children are achieving the knowledge and skills in lessons, then they are deemed to be making good or better progress. 

 

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods: 

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Pupil discussions and interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice). 

Governor monitoring.

Annual reporting and tracking of standards across the curriculum.

Photo and video evidence of the pupils' practical learning.  

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