Music

Intent

At Bandon Hill we want to inspire children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to develop a passion and life-long love of music and music-making. We aim to encourage children to explore and grow their creative musical abilities and provide them with opportunities to learn the skills, knowledge and understanding they need to be able to participate in a range of musical activities with increasing confidence and enjoyment, both in their primary school years with us, and in the future.

Our intention is to provide a curriculum that encourages all children to develop their listening, composing, performing and singing skills from their own individual starting point, as they progress through the school from Early Years to Year 6. This will also help them to gradually improve their self-confidence, their teamwork and their resilience.

Music has the power to bring people together, so we aim to provide opportunities to share our children’s musical skills and achievements with friends and families in performances and concerts, so that children experience using their musical skills to move and inspire other people, both in the school and in the wider community.

We are committed to encouraging our children to take up musical opportunities outside of our school curriculum including singing and performing in the school choir and, through the peripatetic teachers provided by Sutton Music Service, learning a specific musical instrument during school time, including piano, guitar, ukulele and flute.

We recognise the immense value that music can have in the lives of all children and are committed to inspiring and encouraging those who may become our next generation of great musicians and composers.

Implementation

At Bandon Hill, each child has a 30 minute music lesson per week with their music teacher and attends a weekly singing assembly, also led by the music teacher. The curriculum, (based upon the Early Years framework and other supporting documents for Nursery and Reception and based upon the National Curriculum requirements for music in Key Stages 1 and 2) is designed to ensure that all children discover, explore, practise and revisit the skills of singing, playing and performing, listening and composing.

They will have the opportunity to:

• explore and play a range of different tuned and un-tuned instruments;
• sing a range of different songs with increasing accuracy, fluency and expression;
• hear, experience and discuss different types of music from different cultures and time periods;
• explore sounds, creating their own rhythms, melodies and pieces for different purposes.

They will also learn about and practise reading and using music notation, exploring how musicians use this to help them with composing, singing and playing. All this will enable them to develop a deeper understanding of music and increase their confidence and the pleasure they find in listening to music, playing and performing musically and creating their own music.

Through this curriculum children will have the opportunity to explore the interrelated dimensions of music in different ways, including:

• dynamics (volume of the music)
• pitch (sound frequency determining how high or low a note is)
• texture (the number of layers in music)
• timbre (the quality or tone of a sound)
• structure (how music is organised in sections)
• duration (how long a note is)

They will also develop their understanding of aspects of music such as beat and pulse, rhythm, melody and harmony. Skills and knowledge will be revisited regularly in each year group making sure that they have opportunities to revise and practise skills at greater levels of depth as they progress through the school.

Impact

Our music Curriculum is planned to demonstrate progression in order to build on and embed current skills. Children’s understanding, knowledge and skills will be demonstrated during practical lessons and these skills can be observed by the music teacher. Formative assessment throughout lessons will aim to ensure that children’s understanding of the concepts is supported through intervention at the appropriate moments during the lesson. Misunderstandings can then be addressed on the spot and further modelling or instruction given. There will also be opportunities for children to specifically demonstrate their knowledge and skills in performances during music lessons or at the end of units of work. Pictures, sound recordings and video recordings will help to monitor and record the children’s achievements and identify any concepts that need revisiting. Floor books, containing evidence of learning (including photos as well as any written music work) enable us to build a picture of the children’s learning as they progress through the school.  This will also assist the children in evaluating their own learning and making improvements when necessary. Pupil discussions and the interviewing of pupils about their music learning (pupil voice) also helps us measure the impact of our curriculum.

In order to establish that we have met the intentions and aims of our music curriculum children should:

• Have a positive approach towards music learning, being able to persevere and practise skills over time
• Show increasing engagement in listening, singing, performing and creating their own music and be able to recognise and celebrate their achievements
• Be able to perform (either singing or playing) to their class or in front of another audience at their own level
• Be able to show a gradual, growing improvement in their musical skills and knowledge from their own unique starting point
• Progress to the next stage of their musical learning (at high school and further into adulthood) with confidence and a good understanding of basic musical concepts. This will allow them to continue their musical progression and develop their passion for music throughout their lives.  

Click here for our music long term plan.

Click here for our music national curriculum coverage grid.

Click here to see the National Curriculum Programme of Study for music.

We recently received a Schools Music Education Plan Bronze award from the Sutton Music Hub.

           

 

Useful websites

BBC Ten Pieces - https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ten-pieces

Music Mark  #Candomusic - https://www.musicmark.org.uk/resources/resource-category/candomusic/

Classics for Kids - https://www.classicsforkids.com/

Sutton Music Service - https://suttonmusicservice.org.uk/