Music
Intent
At Wincanton Primary, our intention is to engage, motivate and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.
Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination.
Music teaching at Wincanton follows the requirements of the National Curriculum for Music; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum; ensuring the progressive development of musical concepts, knowledge and skills. Music is a unique way of communicating. It is a vehicle for personal expression and can play an important part in the personal and cognitive development of our pupils. To ensure our pupils have a wider appreciation of, exposure to and participation in music, Wincanton Primary aims to reflect the culture and society that we serve, and so the teaching and learning of music enables children to be exposed to wider opportunities and life experiences.
At Wincanton Primary, we recognise that music plays an important part in helping children to feel part of a community and so we provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop their skills, to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms, and to begin to make judgements about the quality of music, supported by the wider school curriculum.
In line with the National Curriculum, our aims for our Music provision are to develop pupils to:
The core skills of music are taught as a discrete program under the guidance of a specialist teacher in Years 4/5 and 6.
Implementation
At Wincanton Primary School, we recognise that music will initially involve a discrete learning program supporting the non-specialist teacher through the Charanga scheme of work. Over time, as teachers become more knowledgeable of the curriculum, our learning experiences will be enriched by meaningful musical connections providing pupils of varying talents to develop a secure understanding of the music curriculum. Repeating a musical skill does not mean their progress is slowing down or their development is moving backwards, it enables pupils to reinforce musical understanding in order to improve the quality of their musicianship.
Our Long Term Plan for 2019-20/progression map allows children to develop new music skills and concepts whilst also revisiting and embedding established musical skills and concepts. At Wincanton, we recognise that achieving mastery in Music means gaining both a deeper understanding of musical skills and concepts at the same time as learning something new. The progression document ensures the curriculum is covered and the skills, knowledge and vocabulary taught are progressive from year group to year group.
We recognise that music is a specialist subject and so a proportion of this is taught in Y4 – Y6 by a music specialist. Music teaching in Reception follows the EYFS Statutory Framework, and in KS1 and Year 3, is taught by experienced class teachers.
Each unit of work has an on-going musical learning focus and a unit specific focus to enable previous musical skills to be embedded. Music lessons usually follow a specific learning sequence:
Music teaching at Wincanton Primary is practical and engaging. A variety of teaching approaches and activities are provided based on pupil ability. Lessons typically involve a combination of the following; games, songs, challenges, listening to music and discussing music, playing a range of musical instruments, performing back, finding the pulse and composing music using notation sheets.
Performance is at the heart of musical teaching and learning at Wincanton and all pupils participate in performances throughout the year. Pupils also take part in outcome assemblies, singing assemblies and pupils from reception to Year 6 perform at our annual carol concert. Pupils are encouraged to perform at local events in Somerset such as Wells Cathedral and in our local community at cafes, Christmas services, events and care homes. Parents are invited and welcomed to watch all of these performances whether at school or outside of school. Each year group participate in an annual production at various points of the year to showcase and celebrate the dramatic and musical skills of our pupils.
At Wincanton, music teaching is not only focused on performance but also providing our pupils with an understanding and appreciation for music. Through our music lessons, children study a wide range of musical styles, genres and composers from a range of musical periods. This is supported by a range of one off experiences through Somerset Music events such as Jackdaw Opera sessions, Gamelan Workshop and Taiko Drumming sessions.
We provide a range of extra-curricular musical activities including “Glee” Club, Ukulele and Taiko
Drumming clubs and individual peripatetic teachers for Piano, currently. Our annual Talent Show
(Wincanton’s Got Talent) gives pupils a platform to share hidden talents that are enjoyed by the whole school community.
Over the past 6 years the school has participated in the Wider Opps programme run by Somerset Music where Year 4 pupils have learnt Brass instruments, Clarinet and most recently the Ukulele. These skills will be further developed with the specialist teacher continuing the teaching of musical skills and notation.
Impact
Our music Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression, building on and embedding current skills. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills in the different musical components and like in other subjects, discreet teaching of vocabulary also forms part of the units of work.
If children are achieving the knowledge and skills in lessons, then they are deemed to be making good or better progress.
We will measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
The impact of our music curriculum is also measured in the uptake of our music clubs and extra curricular opportunities. In addition to this, we also measure the impact of the class composers and routinely ask children about the composer/style of music they are learning.