Music

At St. Patrick’s music inspires and underpins several aspects of our curriculum as well as a focus on music and song being a form of prayerful worship.  It is a universal language that embodies creativity and we use this to inspire our children to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.

Intention 

The intention of the Music at St. Patrick’s is to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music. Our focus is on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that our children need in order to become confident performers, composers, and listeners. Our curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world, different generations and teaching them both respect and appreciation of musical traditions, 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 is written for musicians. Within music, 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 lifelong learners and have a wider application in their general lives outside and beyond school. Our curriculum provision allows for all children to meet the end of key stage attainment targets outlined in the National curriculum.

Implementation

Our music scheme and teaching and learning 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 Our units of work each allow for experiences to develop the five core skills of music.

Over the course children’s musical experiences they will be taught how to sing fluently and expressively, and play tuned and un-tuned 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. Using ‘progression of knowledge and skills’ and teacher guidance on success criteria against learning objectives allow for teachers to confidently assess and ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage

Impact

The impact of our music scheme is regularly and consistently modelled through formative and summative assessment opportunities. This is supported through clear guidance on assessment and knowledge organisers support pupils recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary. At the end of Key Stage 2 we strive to ensure children have a range of skills to enable them to succeed in music in the next stage of their education journey. Our children will: 

• Be confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school.
• 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.
• Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Music