Music

Intent:

At Wilbraham Primary School, we intend to make Music an enjoyable, creative and social experience. In the early years, children begin to develop a love of singing and music making, by acquiring their first skills in recognising dynamics, pulse, rhythm and simple melody and sharing and making music as part of a group, whilst developing their individual confidence.  As children move into key stage one, they expand these skills , using a range of units from the ‘Music Express’ programme. Key Stage 2 children access whole class specialist  tuned percussion teaching (Steel Pans) , to further allow an exploration of melody and texture. Our whole school listening initiative ensures that all children are exposed to a variety of live and recorded music, from a range of traditions and cultures, with age-appropriate creative and critical responses and subject vocabulary. Our school singing group takes part in a number of community projects and performs at buildings of cultural significance in and around our city.

Implementation:

Using Music Express, a progression plan has been built into our music curriculum across the school, ensuring consistent musical development. Our curriculum includes examples of musical styles and genres from different times and places. Our approach is, participatory and inclusive. Children are actively involved in using and developing their singing voices, using body percussion and whole body actions, and learning to handle and play instruments effectively to create and

express their own and others’ music. Through a range of whole class and group activities children have opportunities to explore sounds, actively listen, compose and perform.KS2 build on this by learning how to play the Steel Pans, ensuring

all children access specialist group teaching on tuned and untuned percussion.

Our whole school ‘Piece of the Week’ listening initiative involves every class from Nursery – Year 6 listening and responding to the same piece of music in an

age-appropriate manner. This enables children to be exposed to music from a wide variety of styles, cultures and time periods , whilst building an

understanding of music vocabulary and enjoying the mental health benefits associated with immersing and engaging with music.

Impact:

The impact of music teaching is monitored through recordings, class performances and pupil voice.