Intent
At St Cuthbert’s, our intent is to make music an enjoyable learning experience for all. We will build the confidence of our children through the musical opportunities and wide variety of experiences we provide.
Through our teaching we provide children with the opportunities to experiment with rhythm and follow a beat. We allow our children time to listen and appreciate different genres of music. Our children will develop musical vocabulary and descriptive language skills through music lessons when learning about how music can represent different emotions, feelings and narratives. Children are exposed to technical vocabulary such as volume, pitch, rhythm, and beat. We will encourage children to discuss music using these terms.
Opportunities for our children to sing will be in abundance and through this we are allowing them to learn about the structure and organisation of music.
- Our Early Years children will sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs; perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others, and – when appropriate – try to move in time with music. They will use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes
Within Key Stages 1 & 2 our music curriculum ensures that children:
- Play tuned and untuned instruments musically
- Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high quality live and recorded music
- Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music
- Sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control
- Develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory
- Play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression
- Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music
- Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory
- Use and understand staff and other musical notations
- Appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians
- Develop an understanding of the history of music
Music education at St Cuthbert’s will engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity, resilience and sense of sense belief.
Implementation
At St Cuthbert’s we implement the Charanga scheme of learning. Charanga is a scheme of work which offers a topic-based approach to support children’s learning in music. Charanga provides progressive week-by-week lessons, that when taught fully meet all of the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum for Music.
Charanga includes many examples of music styles and genres from different times and places. These are explored through the language of music via active listening, performing and composing activities, which enable understanding of the context and genre. Charanga provides a classroom-based, participatory and inclusive approach to music learning. Throughout the scheme, children are actively involved in using and developing their singing voices, using body percussion and whole-body actions, and learning to handle and play classroom instruments effectively to create and express their own and others’ music. Through a range of whole class, group and individual activities, children have opportunities to explore sounds, listen actively, compose and perform. skill and given chance for collaboration through composition.
We provide regular opportunities for our children to come together to sing as a whole school through assemblies and Mass. At times through the school year we have a small choir who will perform for the enjoyment of others both in school and within the local community. Our children will have the opportunity to perform for others, sing and move to music through musical performances of the Nativity, Resurrection Rocks and spiritual dance. These experiences allow for children to develop and reinforce their musical skills with focus on their understanding of key musical elements like rhythm and pitch.
Children in Year 3 and 4 will learn to play the recorder during their class music lessons. This happens in the Autumn term for Year 3 and the Spring term for Year 4. The school also offers high-quality sessions from outside agencies,including violin and clarinet.
This academic year, children will also begin learning to play a tuned instrument in the form of the recorder / ukelele.
Trips and visiting experts will be arranged by teachers in order to enhance the learning experiences provided for our children.