Mrs Shaw

At Knowle CE Primary Academy, we recognise that music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. We encourage children to participate in a variety of engaging and inspiring musical experiences to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence and sense of achievement. Our teaching focuses on developing our pupils’ ability to sing in tune as individuals and with others, with increasingly high expectations for performances as they progress through school. Children listen to, appraise and evaluate different forms of music, including the works of great composers and musicians, learning about the genre, structure and organisation. This enables them to develop a critical engagement with music and cultivate their own appreciation. We teach the essential building blocks such as pitch, tempo, texture and musical notation and develop skills in working with others to create and compose music. All children are actively encouraged and given the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument, either using standard classroom instruments, within group instrumental programmes from specialist teachers or in individual instrumental lessons with expert, peripatetic tutors.

Our curriculum intent – the knowledge and skills we expect our pupils to learn – can be found in our Long Term Plans and Medium Term Plans (see below)

Based upon The National Curriculum and the individual needs of our children, we have chosen to use the KAPOW Scheme of Learning to inform our Long Term Plan and Medium Term Plan.

The 5 key concepts that drive learning across our Music Curriculum are ‘Listening’, ‘History of music’, ‘Composing’, ‘Performing’ and ‘the inter-related dimensions of music’. We use (but are not bound by strictly following) the scheme of work provided by KAPOW, which is informed by the National Curriculum and Model Music Curriculum. We have designed our Music curriculum to match (wherever possible) themes and topics in individual year. We have also linked teaching to our school ‘SMILE’ objectives and wider performances, which allow children to celebrate and worship through music, such as The Harvest Festival service in Knowle Parish Church in Year 4 and the Leavers’ Performance in Year 6.

Each individual lesson has content that is differentiated between and within year groups so that learning is age-appropriate and high expectations are maintained. Children use Music books to record their responses following listening and appraising activities, and also to document their composition notes including age-appropriate notation.

Regular, planned opportunities are built into our curriculum for children to showcase what they have learnt and to practise their skills; for example, Year 5 ukulele performance to parents and peers, and Year 3 performance to parents and the local community at the end of their ‘Mountains’ unit of work.

During collective worship, a music display encourages children to critically analyse music from various genres based on recommendations from the Model Music Curriculum. During lesson time, teachers use questioning and provide opportunities for discussion to support the development of vocabulary which is explicitly taught and modelled by teachers as relevant.

Our four key concepts are revisited frequently to make learning memorable, relevant and easy to retrieve. Links with our local community, in particular our local church, widen our children’s real performance experiences and ensure that they have access to inspirational people and a range of audiences. Our use of technology allows us to record and publish performances within and beyond the school community.