Music
'Where words fail, music speaks’
Hans Christian Anderson
“For with God, everything is possible” (Matthew 19:26)
Through our continued service to our community and rooted in our Christian Values, the opportunities we provide inspire our children and adults at our school to learn, to grow and to flourish. We are committed to developing our children into confident individuals who make a positive difference through developing a respect for themselves, each other and the world around them. For with God, everything is possible. (Matthew 19:26)
In our music curriculum, we ensure that children value and respect the subject and its impact on their wellbeing through an appreciation of key artists, composers and by seizing the opportunity in their young lives to develop a love of music. We provide a high-quality education within a creative, stimulating, encouraging and mutually supportive environment where children are enabled to develop the skills they require to become successful in music.
Our 5 Crown Principles drive our Music Curriculum
Challenge
Our ambitious curriculum is the challenge for our children. Through Through the ‘challenge’ curriculum driver we want our children relish challenges that being a musician can bring: to listen, appraise, perform and evaluate whilst acquiring the key skills needed for any budding young musician
Resilience
Through the ‘resilience’ curriculum driver, we promote optimism and determination in music. A selection of carefully chosen musical influences are embedded within our music curriculum to promote resilience. Children are encouraged to be resilient when embarking on their musical journeys in becoming the budding young performers that we believe our children should have the opportunity to be.
Opportunities
Through ‘opportunities’, we raise aspirations to broaden our children’s horizons – opening their eyes to the myriad careers they might pursue. Through careful planning, we have chosen key musical concepts so children aspire to be like the influential musicians who have impacted the world. We provide tangible role models to raise our pupils’ aspirations to inspire them to work even harder to be the best that they can be. We want our pupils to have a clear understanding of the link between achieving well and having musical aspirations for the future.
Wellbeing
At Queen’s Park, we understand that happiness is linked to personal growth, health and development. We ensure our children are happy, healthy individuals. In music, we ensure our children can share in the early aspirations that have made our musicians of yesteryear and can show an appreciation for the contributions that music has provided us with and its impact on their young lives. With ‘wellbeing’ as a curriculum driver, we give children the confidence to musically thrive in a diverse, global society and be respectful citizens with British and Christian Values at the core.
kNowledge
Through the ‘kNowledge’ curriculum driver, we encourage our children to be resourceful learners. It is uniquely challenging and coherent to our children. The knowledge and skills acquired in music is crafted by our curriculum leader and music subject leader to ensure that all pupils achieve secure key skills and knowledge in music. All our teachers teach with the aim to ensure pupils have the sufficient skills and knowledge to progress through primary school and beyond
Being a musician means that all the key elements of music complement each other harmoniously. Through our listen, appraise and perform approach, our children begin to understand that ‘we are all musicians’.
The children learn to appreciate many different genres of music and their composers associated from the Baroque period up to the present day, forming an integral part of our listen and appraise element to our curriculum.
We also want a Queen’s Park pupil leaving our school having been given the opportunity to learn a new instrument from all four musical families; percussion, strings, woodwind and brass creating the new and budding musicians of tomorrow having been inspired by those of the past.
Music Long Term Plan
Music is taught three times throughout the year
Progression documents
Our progression documents have been created by the Curriculum Leader and Music Subject Leader to ensure clear progress in the three areas of music we focus on at Queen’s Park: listen and appraise, improvise and compose and perform.
The progression documents show key knowledge (substantive knowledge), key vocabulary and key skills (disciplinary knowledge) and assessment outcomes from EYFS – Year 6.
Vocabulary is V.I.T.A.L in Music Valued We value vocabulary in music and in everything we do. Identified Musical vocabulary is identified by the music subject leader and is explicitly planned for. Taught Vocabulary is explicitly taught in every lesson. Our Musical Journeys are used as a teaching tool for key music vocabulary and the music medium term plans include additional vocabulary to be taught. Applied Once vocabulary is taught, it is applied. Children apply their vocabulary in their listening and appraising, performance and evaluating outcomes in music. Learned Vocabulary is revisited and relearned. Vocabulary sticks in the children’s long-term memory. Lesson by lesson, year by year, children revisit and relearn key musical vocabulary.
Through an ‘explosion of experiences’, our youngest musicians are exposed to the foundations of their musical learning. Musical knowledge, skills and experiences are provided to develop children’s artistic and cultural awareness. Adults support the imagination and creativity of our children through play. Children are given the opportunity to explore musical instruments and given chance to perform, sing and express themselves to music. High quality daily rhymes and carefully planned stories are the beating heart of our music curriculum in EYFS. Musical vocabulary is planned for. Staff are role models in demonstrating musical vocabulary to develop self expression and the ability to communicate through the arts which is further enhanced in our excellent provision. The foundations of music learning in EYFS are linked to Year 1 and beyond. Year 1 to Year 6 Year on year, children will build upon their musical knowledge, skills and vocabulary. The curriculum leader and music subject leader have created a meaningful, sequential learning journey through music. Careful curriculum thinking and planning ensures that our children have the subject knowledge and components embedded in their long-term memories.
Pedagogy
Both our staff and children are enthusiastic about music. Through ongoing CPD, we strive to ensure our teachers have expert knowledge of the music they teach. Our pedagogy is firmly based upon our curriculum intent of embedding concepts into long-term memory so that they are able to be recalled, to ensure substantive and disciplinary knowledge and skills can be applied fluently. Our ‘Queen’s Park Quality First Teaching’ model ensures that lessons are effectively sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and towards defined end points. We firmly believe that all children should have full access, including those with additional needs, to our music curriculum therefore focused scaffolding is in place where appropriate.
The sequence of lessons across music follows the same structure:
Each lesson, within the sequence, follows the structure so prior knowledge is constantly revisited and transferred to long term memory
Musical Journeys Our Musical Journeys support our children with vocabulary and key knowledge for each unit of work. They enhance children’s understanding of key concepts, present information clearly and promote appropriate discussion. |
We understand that we may not see the true impact of our music curriculum on our children as our music curriculum is just the beginning of a lifetime of learning. Our well-constructed and well-taught music curriculum leads to great outcomes. Our results are a reflection of what our children have learnt. At Queen’s Park, our philosophy is that broad and balanced leads to great outcomes and meeting end points at the end of each key stage. National assessments are useful indicators of the outcomes our children achieve. We ensure all groups of children are given the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. We strive to ensure that our children are equipped with the skills (through a growth mindset approach) to fluently be able to retrieve key facts from their semantic memory. The quality of our children’s work, at every stage, is of a high standard. All learning is built towards an end point and at each stage of their education, we prepare our children for the next stage. We ensure all our children read to a stage appropriate level and fluency. Reading is the beating heart of our music curriculum. Through disciplinary literacy in music lessons, the impact of reading on the children’s musical learning is paramount. The impact of Queen’s Park music curriculum is measured through the following:
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