It is our intention that every pupil is provided with the opportunity to develop an appreciation and understanding of music, which they can carry with them throughout their lives. We strive to ensure that our pupils value and respect music, understanding the importance that it can play in life and with our personal emotions and experiences. We aim for pupils to gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing across a wide variety of styles, traditions, and musical genres.
Our objective is to develop a curiosity for, and engagement with the subject, as well as an understanding and acceptance of different types of music. Experiencing a range of music develops pupil’s wellbeing and cultural capital and we therefore strive for all pupils to have access to a range of musical opportunities. We are committed to ensuring pupils 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.
The Music curriculum is progressive from year group to year group and provides challenge. All musical learning in this scheme of work is built around the Interrelated Dimensions of Music: pulse, rhythm, pitch, tempo, dynamics, timbre, texture, structure and notation. They weave through the units to encourage the development of musical skills as the learning progresses through listening and appraising, differing musical activities (including creating and exploring) and performing. Pupils learn to understand musical concepts through a repetition-based approach to learning. Learning about the same musical concept through different musical activities enables a more secure understanding of musical skills.
We draw on a range of other resources in order to further enhance the pupil’s musical development. Musical activities carried out related to topic and English work for example, add a further dimension to each pupil’s learning. We have links with DARTS (Doncaster’s Participatory Arts Charity) and they work with all pupils across the year on delivering a variety of musical workshops. The workshops to date include Percussion Artist Gary, DJ Rob, Mooney’s Rock and Pop Band and Dyzelle’ s Reading Music sessions.
Each unit of music is assessed by class teachers and DARTs through continuous observations during sessions, recording evidence on assessment systems and evidencing recordings of the performances.
Reviewing and reflecting regularly helps to inform future lessons with DARTs. The impact of our music curriculum will be assessed using these outcomes and will be assessed and monitored through pupil and teacher voice and through observing lessons. The aim is for our pupils to understand the relevance of what they are learning within music and to enjoy their musical experiences within school. Pupils will be keen to participate in wider musical activities. Our pupils will develop an appreciation and understanding of music, which they can carry with them throughout their lives.
