Subject Leader - Mrs E. Higgins

‘Music……gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and life to everything’  Plato

Intent

At Cecil Road we want music to be enjoyable and inspiring. We want our children to remember their music lessons in our school, to cherish these memories and embrace the musical opportunities they are presented with. Our music curriculum aims to provide all pupils with an enjoyable, high quality music education which engages and inspires children to find a love of music and to encourage them to carry on with their passion for music beyond their time at primary school whether it be through listening to it, learning to play it, moving to it or creating it.

Our music curriculum increases self-confidence, curiosity, creativity and imagination and provides opportunities for self-expression and a sense of personal achievement. We want children to participate in a wide range of activities to develop their talents in all aspects of music including rhythm work, instrumental skills, composition, creativity, singing and appreciation. We want music to be embedded into school life to give the opportunity for children to become real musicians and be given opportunities to perform and share their musical skills.

Implementation

At Cecil Road, we have carefully crafted a bespoke curriculum to allow children the scope to develop all aspects of their musical development, whether this be singing, the more formal playing of instruments and reading standard notation or, indeed, the more fluid creative musical activities. The music curriculum has been carefully built and the learning opportunities and assessment milestones for each year group developed to ensure progression and repetition in terms of embedding key learning, knowledge and skills. We use a combination of creative, sometimes topic-based musical activities, the Charanga scheme of work, BBC’s Ten Pieces, and whole class instrumental teaching to teach the National Curriculum and work towards the aspirations of the Model Music Curriculum and the National Plan for Music Education.

 

Throughout the music curriculum, children are actively involved in using and developing their singing voices, using body percussion and actions, and learning to handle and play classroom instruments and tuned instruments effectively to create and express their own and others’ music to compose and perform.

Cecil Road is committed to providing a broad and balanced curriculum through a rich musical education and to this end every class in EYFS, Key Stages 1 and 2 are taught music on a weekly basis. This is taught through a combination of the use of a specialist music teacher, instrumental teachers from Kent Music, class teachers, HLTAs and TAs. Music in Nursery is developed through singing during the school day and through the development of continuous provision throughout the year. EYFS also benefit from a dedicated music areas in their continuous provision which is developed throughout the year in line with the children’s interests. We recognise that singing plays an important role in music education and beyond and therefore it is taught weekly to all year groups In Key Stage 1 and 2 in dedicated singing assemblies. During the latter part of the year EYFS also join these singing assemblies.

Musical opportunities in school are wide and varied to enhance and build on the children’s musical understanding developed in weekly class music lessons, whole class ukulele/recorder/glockenspiel lessons (as a part of our Wider Opportunities sessions) and weekly singing practice. These include visiting musicians, Christmas performances, singing in the local church, Harvest assemblies, Banghra drumming workshops, Year 6 leaver’s Show, other seasonal concerts and other opportunities when they present themselves.

At Cecil Road our children are encouraged to develop a passion for music and follow these up through extra-curricular opportunities including Choir and Young Voices, ukulele club and instrumental lessons, currently on piano and guitar provided by peripatetic teachers, as well as our annual Cecil Road’s Got Talent competition.

All children are provided with the opportunity to learn a new instrument. Please follow the link to find out more information! Does-your-child-want-to-play-the-piano-or-the-guitar.315918443.docx (live.com)

Impact

Through a varied bespoke curriculum, children are able to enjoy music as a listener, creator or performer. Children are confident when performing and develop a sense of achievement from being part of the school choir or production.