Music

Music Curriculum Statement

Aiming High Together

Intent
At Lowton West Primary School, we understand that music can inspire and motivate children, and play an important role in their personal development. Music can also help children develop a greater appreciation of the world we live in, by understanding different cultures and societies through music.

Lowton West Primary School delivers a broad and balanced music curriculum, in line with national requirements, which enables pupils to:

• Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians.
• Learn to sing and use their voices.
• Create, compose and improvise music on their own and alongside their peers.
• Have the opportunities to learn a musical instrument, use technology properly and to progress to the next level of musical excellence.
• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

At Lowton West, children gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions, and musical genres. We are committed to developing a curiosity for the subject, as well as an understanding and acceptance of the validity and importance of all types of music, and an unbiased respect for the role that music may wish to be expressed in any person’s life. We are committed to ensuring children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community and are able to use their musical skills, knowledge, and experiences to involve themselves in music, in a variety of different contexts.

Implementation
Using the Charanga Musical Scheme of Work as the basis of our planning, our music curriculum ensures children sing, listen, appraise, improvise, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in the weekly classroom sessions as well as the weekly singing assemblies, various concerts and performances and the huge intake we have for the learning of instruments. The elements of music are taught in the classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to dissect it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. In the classroom, children learn how to play an instrument from our well-resourced selection of tuned and non-tuned percussion, including recorders and ukuleles. They are taught to understand the different principle of each method of creating notes including duration, pitch, as well as how to read basic music notation. They also learn how to compose and improvise, focusing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. Focus is also placed on learning about famous composers. Composing or performing using body percussion and vocal sounds is also part of the curriculum, which develops the understanding of musical elements without the added complexity of an instrument.

Impact
Whilst in school, children have access to a varied programme, which allows them to discover areas of strength, as well as areas they might like to improve upon. The integral nature of music and the learner creates an enormously rich palette from which a child may access fundamental abilities such as: achievement, self-confidence, interaction with and awareness of others, and self-reflection. Music will also develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to children individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world. Children are able to enjoy music in as many ways as they choose – either as listener, creator or performer. As musicians, they can dissect music and comprehend its parts. They can sing and feel a pulse. Ultimately, at Lowton West, the children are developing lifelong skills which, in turn, will enable them to fully integrate into society in the future.

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