Music

Music Curriculum

Intent:

At Chalfont St Peter Infant School, music is at the heart of our school. We believe that music plays an integral role in helping children to feel part of a community, therefore we provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music both in class and to an audience. Through assemblies, performances and concerts, children showcase their talent and their understanding of performing. Lessons enable children to gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating and composing across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions and musical genres.

Implementation:

Our music curriculum ensures children sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in weekly music lessons as well as weekly singing assemblies, various concerts and performances and instrumental lessons. We use a scheme call Sparkyard to support our teaching of music. A steady progression plan has been built into Sparkyard both within each year and from one year to the next, ensuring consistent musical development. During music lessons children are given opportunities to learn music specific vocabulary in a meaningful context. Our lessons include many examples of music styles and genres from different times and places. These are explored through the language of music via listening, performing and composing activities. Through using Sparkyard, children are actively involved in using and developing their singing voices, using body percussion and actions, and learning how to handle and play classroom instruments. Through a range of whole class, group and individual activities, children have opportunities to explore sounds, listen actively, compose and perform.

Within Year R, rhythm and rhyme are utilise throughout the learning of Literacy and Mathematics. Children learn a wide variety of songs and rhymes and develop skills for performing together. Singing and music making opportunities are used frequently to embed learning, develop musical awareness and to demonstrate how music can be used to express feelings. Children in Year R have a weekly music lessons which teaches the children the foundations they need to be successful in music in KS1.

Performance is at the heart of musical teaching and learning at Chalfont St Peter Infant School and pupils participate in a range of performances during their time with us. These include Harvest Festival, Nativity Play, Christmas Concert, Easter Concert, Leavers Play (Year 2), Project Week (Year 1) and Graduation (Year R). Parents are invited to watch all of these performances.

Alongside our curriculum provision for music, children also have the opportunity to participate in various music clubs. These are KS1 Choir, Year R Choir and Recorders (KS1). The children within music clubs perform at various performances throughout the year. Children in the KS1 and Year R choir also perform at events within the local community (Feast Day).

Impact:

Children enjoy their music lessons and build on their musical skills over time. They being to use musical vocabulary to discuss a piece of music. They can sing in a variety of musical styles, use instruments to respond to songs and compose their own music. All children benefit from a high-quality music education which engages and inspires them to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians. It will increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. Teaching and learning of music is a reflective process for the children as they are given opportunities to self-assess and peer assess.

We will measure the impact of the curriculum through:

• Videos of classwork
• Photographic evidence
• Pupil interviews/questionnaires about their learning

The impact of our music curriculum is also measured in the uptake of our music clubs.

African Drumming Workshop

On Wednesday 20th October we had a visit from African Activities. We started the day with a whole school assembly where we were told about the history of the djembe drum and we learnt an African song. Each class then had a workshop where they learnt the different sounds of the drum and followed the rhythms.