Music

Music
at St Anne’s Primary School

Music is an art that puts sounds together

Intent: Why does our Music curriculum look like this?

Music is an integral part of life at St Anne’s Catholic Primary, taught with enthusiasm, passion and creativity by our staff in colloboration with local venue Future Yard.  It is our intention that children gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing across a wide variety of musical genres.  Our music teaching is designed to be hands-on, practical, fun and inspiring.  We ensure all children have opportunities to take part in a variety of musical experiences both in the classroom and within real-world situations.  We offer every child the opportuntity to join our band club or sign up for individual instrument or vocal lessons.

Implementation: How will we achieve this?

Our children follow a carefully structured Music curriculum which has been designed to ensure our children know more, remember more and do more as they progress through our school.  The curriculum is supported by Future Yard and ensures equal coverage of the four musical metrics - Performing, Listening, Composing and Appraising.

·         Performing - Using voice and body percussion to produce rhythms and melodies as part of en ensemble or in response to others.

·         Listening - Identifying instruments within music and recognising changes on timbre, pitch, dynamics and tempo.

·         Composing - Creating rhythmic patterns and melodies with an understanding of musical structure.

·         Appraising - Responding to and evaluating the mood, components and purpose of different pieces of music.

Each strand is embedded and applied through thematic units of learning focused on a song and which link and reinforce the interrelated dimensions of music in a progressive manner.

Our approach allows children to apply and enhance their music skills in a practical way.  Children have regular opportunities to explore many rich and diverse types of music, actively listen to, reflect and appraise, compose and perform (using a mix of tuned and untuned instruments), during their musical journey through school.  

Music is further enriched beyond the classroom through our vibrant assemblies and our children enjoy sharing their love of singing through various celebration assemblies, Church Mass, Hymn Practice, concerts and productions throughout the year.

Impact: How will we know that our children are achieving?

By the end of each key stage, children are expected to know, apply and understand the skills and techniques specified in the music curriculum plan.

Children are assessed using our Insight tracking system which identifies clear and progressive end points. This ensures progress is maintained and end of key stage expectations are met by all children.

Children are assessed termly and a final summative assessment is made at the end of the academic year.  Children will be assessed as Working Below, Towards or At Age Related Expectations.

In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

·         A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes

·         A celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates progression across the school

·         Pupil discussions about their learning

·         The annual tracking of standards across the curriculum