Saint Mary’s Catholic Primary School

Music Curriculum Statement

Intent

At Saint Mary’s Catholic Primary School, we encourage all children to become musicians, 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. We introduce children to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities.

Children learn music in a safe environment where their contributions are valued. They will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music. Children will develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music they listen to and learn how music can be written down. Our music curriculum teaches children to appreciate, enjoy, compose and experience music as a means to positive wellbeing and mental health, and helps them understand that music can be a great way to express feelings.

Children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music. They will develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music that they listen to and learn how music can be written down. Through music, our 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 school.

At Saint Mary’s, we utilise Kapow Primary’s Music Scheme of Work, which enables pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets outlined in the National Curriculum, and the Early Learning Goals at the end of EYFS. We additionally utilise support from our local music hub, the Love Music Trust, to teach instrumental lessons in Key Stage 2, in line with National Curriculum objectives and the Model Music Curriculum.

Implementation

Saint Mary’s takes a holistic approach to music, in which the individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences:

• Listening and evaluating
• Creating sound
• Notation
• Improvising and composing
• Performing

Each taught unit combines these strands within a cross-curricular topic designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. These units have been carefully selected to reflect cross-curricular learning to maximise engagement with pupils, which also considering a progression of skills and knowledge. 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, demonstrate 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.

Each taught unit covers each of the National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the key strands listed above. Our Progression of Knowledge and Skills document shows the skills that are taught within each year group from EYFS to Year 6, and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage.

The Kapow Primary scheme follows the spiral curriculum model where previous skills and knowledge are 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, the interrelated dimensions of music and more.

In each lesson, pupils will actively participate in musical activities drawn from a range of styles and traditions, developing their musical skills and their understanding of how music works. Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work as well as improvisation and teacher-led performances. Lessons are ‘hands-on’ and incorporate movement and dance elements, as well as making cross curricular links with other areas of learning.

Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils in building a foundation of factual knowledge by encouraging

recall of key facts and vocabulary.

Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to be able to deliver a highly effective and robust music curriculum. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD, aiding teachers in their own acquisition of musical skills and knowledge. Further CPD opportunities can also be found via webinars with our music subject specialists. The use of the Kapow Primary Music Scheme ensures that teachers feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.

Music is taught each week, with each half-term focusing on a given unit. Opportunities to enrich the children’s music learning alongside the Kapow scheme are planned into medium term plans. This can include additional resources from Rocksteady, and watching key musicians and performances.

As well as whole-class music lessons which all children engage with, Saint Mary’s also provides other opportunities for children to experience music: all children take part in whole-school singing; and children have the opportunity to join the Young Voices choir, play in a rock band, or have private instrument tuition. We also encourage opportunities to perform to the school and the wider community via an end of year production, Christmas Nativity, Rocksteady concerts, assemblies, and other choir performances. Various enrichment opportunities are also planned in throughout the year, which has previously included Rocktopus (combining music and physical education) and Conductive Music (music technology workshops).

Impact

The impact of our music curriculum can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives and at the end of each unit there is often a performance element where teachers can make a summative assessment of pupils’ learning. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils by providing a highly visual record of the key learning from the unit, encouraging recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary.

Pupils should leave Saint Mary’s equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and to be able to enjoy and appreciate music throughout their lives.

The expected impact of our music curriculum at Saint Mary’s is that children will:

• Build their skills in listening, appraising and performing music.

• Be confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school.
• Enjoy learning about and listening to music, and take pride in performing.
• Show an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and will understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social, and historical contexts in which it is developed.
• Understand the various ways in which music can be written down to support performing and composing activities.
• Demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and be able to identify their own personal musical preferences.
• Manipulate different instruments and enjoy creating musical pieces together.
• Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Music.

Teachers utilise DC Pro to formatively track individual pupil progress, which supports summative assessments. Visual and audio recordings are taken and saved to capture pupil progress and performances in lessons, as well as written work where appropriate. A floor book is used by the subject lead to collate evidence across year groups and capture each classes learning and progression.