Vision

At The Grange Primary School, we believe that music is a unique way of communication and self-expression that can inspire and empower our children. Music is a natural and integral part of the school’s life in general as well as of the learning process whether it be Maths, Phonics, English, French or other foundation subjects.

Intent

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon. (The National Curriculum)

In EYFS, Music is taught through Expressive Arts and Design activities. Among the skills that children develop are listening with attention, responding to what they’ve heard, singing at the right pitch, and playing instruments with increasing control.

In KS1 children learn to use their voices expressively, play instruments, listen to concentration, and experiment and create musical pieces.

In KS2, pupils continue to consolidate their skills and knowledge, additionally focusing more on history of music, improvisation and composition as well as understanding musical notation.

Implementation

At the Grange Primary School, we follow the Charanga scheme of work which completely corresponds to the requirements of the National Curriculum.

The musical knowledge in this scheme is taught through the skills of listening, singing, playing, composing and improvising. This scheme of work has musical knowledge and teaches skills that are appropriate for each stage of learning from Reception to Year 6. This is a ‘doing’ kind of scheme of work – children are ‘making’ music, they are actively engaged in the process by singing, composing, playing and improvising thus we do not expect a lot of work in the books.

Impact

Our Curriculum focuses on progression of skills and knowledge. Children repetitively have the opportunities to revisit (and thus consolidate) the previous learning and then, by facing the new, harder challenges, to progress further as performers and musicians.