At Bishop’s Waltham Junior School the health, safety and well-being of every child is our top priority.

Music

National Curriculum Aims for Music

The national curriculum for music aims to ensure 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
• 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
• understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the interrelated dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations

Music at Bishop's Waltham Junior School

Intent

• Provide children with the opportunity to listen to a range of music from a variety of genres and cultures, encouraging them to comment freely on what they are listening to.
• Introduce the concepts of improvising and composing, encouraging children to create freely in response to a range of themes and stimuli.
• Encourage all children to use and explore their voice to sing as part of a group, creating a sense of ensemble.
• Give children the basic foundations for reading notation, including note values and note names within the pentatonic scale.

Implementation

• Music is taught weekly, usually during PPA cover, with sessions spanning across a half term which relate to a given topic or theme. Some topics also have cross-curricular links to other units of work (where appropriate).
• The subject leader plans the units, liaising with teachers to ensure music is taught consistently, providing appropriate resources/feedback to support the learning of children and the confidence of those teaching.
• Each unit of music utilises different inter-related dimensions and encompasses one of the musical areas outlined in the National Curriculum subject Guidance: Improvisation, Composition, Singing, Performing/Rehearsing, Listening and Notation.
• Each year group’s topics revisit and develop upon prior learning in each music area. Each topic revisits previously taught skills to aid understanding before developing the area in order to progress learning (adding in new note values or adding additional bars to composition expectations).
• All year groups have the opportunity to access a range of instruments (tuned and untuned) for improvising and composing purposes.
• Year 4 have access the HMS programme ‘Listen2Me’ where they have weekly sessions to explore a range of instruments, changing half termly.
• Assessments for music are far more un-structured than other subjects – assessment usually comes in the form of ‘recap quizzes’ or class/school performances. When appropriate, in-class learning can be shared in weekly singing assemblies to provide a target for development. Due to the objective nature of music/listening, groups should be encouraged to share without pressure of right/wrong answers.

Impact

As a result of our whole school music curriculum, pupils of Bishop’s Waltham Junior School will:

• Develop an awareness of music genres, forming opinions and commenting on the things they hear with confidence.
• Have a growing confidence when performing in front of an audience, working together to perform with others and create a sense of ensemble.
• Have developed an understanding for the need to rehearse in order to create a polished performance piece.
• Be able to compose pieces in response to a range of stimuli, making musical choices and experimenting with sound to form cohesive compositions.
• Be able to play a range of instruments (untuned and tuned).
• Be able to understand basic stave notation (note values) and have knowledge regarding notes included on the pentatonic scale.

Success will be monitored through:

• Lesson observations (undertaken by the subject leader termly) to ensure the consistency of music teaching across year groups. Discussions will also be had with year groups to discover gaps/difficult areas that children may need more input on in future sessions to aid understanding.
• Group performances, either in a classroom setting or as a whole school performance in an assembly (or other event), where others can view the musical pieces, either learnt or composed.

The National Curriculum for Music

National Curriculum - Music