The Power of Music.
Music is all around us. It is the soundtrack to our lives. Music connects us through people and places in our ever-changing world. It is creative, collaborative, celebratory and challenging. In our schools, music can bring communities together through the shared endeavour of whole-school singing, ensemble playing, experimenting with the creative process and, through the love of listening to friends and fellow pupils, performing. The sheer joy of music making can feed the soul of a school community, enriching each student while strengthening the shared bonds of support and trust which make a great school.
(Model Music Curriculum 2021)
Music teaching at Kirk Ella St Andrew’s aims to follow the specifications of the new Model Music Curriculum, providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum and ensuring the progressive development of musical concepts, knowledge and skills. The main areas of the curriculum are
- Singing
- Listening
- Composing
- Performing/Instrumental performance
Within these 4 areas, the aims of our Music Curriculum are to develop pupils who:
- Enjoy and an appreciation of music
- Listen to and appraise a range of genres, traditions and historical time periods
- Can sing and use their voices effectively
- Create, improvise and compose music, both on their own and with others
- Use a range of musical language
- Take part in performances with an awareness of audience
Teachers deliver the requirements of the Model Music Curriculum through use of the Charanga scheme of work. The Music Leads have also ensured a progression of skills through the Music Long Term Plan. SEND children are planned for and children of all abilities are catered for through the Charanga planning tool. Lessons are delivered weekly or taught in blocks.
Each lesson delivered through the Charanga planning usually follows a specific learning sequence:
- Listen and Appraise
- Musical activities – including rhythm and pulse
- Singing and Voice
- Playing instruments
- Improvising and Composing
- Perform and Share
As well as untuned instruments, children learn to play tuned instruments within music lessons: EYFS- Year 4 – Glockenspiels. Year 5 & 6 – Keyboards. Our long term plan ensures a full progression of the teaching of tuned instruments.
The Schools’ Music Service provides Violin, Cello, Guitar and Woodwind lessons to KS2 children as well as singing and music lessons for Year 2. The children are given opportunities to join the School Choir – Y2 to Y6 and/or our Musical Theatre group- Y3 to Y6.
Children have various opportunities to perform at Kirk Ella St Andrew’s:
Nativities – EYFS &Y1, Singing assemblies in KS1&KS2, Harvest assemblies, Christmas services, Christmas Class songs and Easter services. The Year 6 children also take part in a Leavers’ performance. The children also have the opportunity to perform in our Music Afternoons, showcasing their musical talents to parents. The School choir performs at a variety of events throughout the year and children from both KS1 and KS2 have been given the opportunity to perform at various events such as: The Brid Big Sing, Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance, Opera North, Young Voices and The Virtual Big Sing.
We measure the impact of our curriculum through:
- Pupil voice discussions
- Governor discussions/monitoring
- Video assessment evidence, using the same song to measure progression.
- Photo/ video evidence of children playing tuned instruments after a sequence of lessons.
- Using the assessment tools on the Charanga scheme
- Music leader time/observation and assessment,
The impact of our music curriculum is also measured by the uptake of our music extra-curricular clubs and also the uptake of our peripatetic lessons.
