Music Intent Statement
The National Curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:
Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music
Be taught to sing, create and compose music
Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated.
At Slimbridge Primary School the intention is that children gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions, and musical genres.
Our objective at Slimbridge Primary School is to develop a curiosity for the subject, as well as an understanding and acceptance of the validity and importance of all types of music, and an unbiased respect for the role that music may wish to be expressed in any person’s life.
We are committed to ensuring children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community, and are able to use their musical skills, knowledge, and experiences to involve themselves in music, in a variety of different contexts. We want music to inspire self-confidence in our children through development of a fun and safe learning environment, and encourage a feeling of fellowship through shared creation and appreciation of music.
Music Implementation Statement
The music curriculum ensures students sing, this is the heart of our music curriculum, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in the classroom activities as well as the weekly singing assemblies, various concerts and performances (both in and out of school), and the option to learn instruments. Musical activities are led by the music specialist teacher but every teacher is encouraged to use music in their everyday classroom activities. Every child at Slimbridge Primary School is given the opportunity to perform to each other in class, but also to members of the wider community and their families through whole school performances.
The interrelated dimensions of music are taught in the classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to dissect it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. In the classroom students learn about the sounds that instruments make. In doing so, they become familiar with the method of creating notes, as well as how to read basic music notation. They also learn how to compose focussing on the interrelated dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. The music specialist teacher teaches all classes across KS1 and KS2 for an hour a week.
In addition, children at Slimbridge Primary School are able to use music technology to create digital music online through the use of laptops and software in the classroom using BandLab which is cloud based so children can also access their compositions from home. Children from the youngest year groups use programmes such as Chrome Music Lab to explore musical sounds, whilst this progresses through different programmes until the end of KS2, where children can compose whole songs and experiment with loops.
Music Impact Statement
Whilst at Slimbridge Primary School, children have the option to access individual instrumental lessons and quality whole class lessons, which allows students to discover areas of strength, as well as areas they might like to improve upon. This is supported by peripatetic music teachers and the music specialist teacher. Together we aim to foster a love of playing an instrument promoted and encouraged in their ability to do so as a form of expression.
The integral nature of music and the learner creates an enormously rich palette from which a student may access fundamental abilities such as: achievement, self-confidence, interaction with and awareness of others, and self-reflection. Music can also be used as an aid to develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to students individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world.
Children are able to enjoy music, in as many ways as they choose – either as listener, creator or performer. They can dissect music and comprehend its parts. They can sing and feel a pulse. They enjoy the feeling of togetherness created by confidently singing as an ensemble or as a whole school. Whole class ensemble teaching empowers every child to feel they have a role in an ensemble/orchestra and that their part is valued. They have an understanding of how to further develop skills less known to them, should they ever wish to develop an interest in their lives. They are aware of how music can be an integral part of other school themes, such as mindfulness, growth mind-set or FBV, through staff modelling and selection of musical choices integrated across the curriculum and through a ‘pupil voice’ carried out by the music specialist teacher at the end of each unit of work.