Music

Charles Darwin Community Primary School

Music Overview

Music

Charles Darwin Community Primary School

Music Overview

Our Intent

After 7 years of studying music at Charles Darwin, pupils will have learnt how to:

• Sing in tune
• Listen to and appreciate a wide range of musical genres
• Compose and perform music using a range of instruments and body percussion
• Show confidence in a range of musical performances

What This Looks Like at Charles Darwin

At Charles Darwin, we make music an enjoyable learning experience, and ensure it is accessible to all learners. The children participate enthusiastically and are keen to perform within lessons and to larger audiences.

Music is taught every other week throughout the year. We follow the ‘Kapow’ music curriculum from EYFS to Year 6. This is an engaging and diverse curriculum that builds on skills through the children’s time at school. It provides children with opportunities to play a broad range of instruments, develop their musicality, learn subject specific vocabulary, sing, compose and perform. Furthermore, we offer glockenspiel and ukelele lessons to Year 3 and Year 4 students  to ensure all children leave the school with the basic skills on these instruments. These lessons are delivered by music experts, and therefore are high quality lessons.

Weekly, our children take part in a Key Stage 1 or Key Stage 2 singing assembly. This gives all the children the opportunity to sing as part of a whole school choir.

As a school, we offer a wide range of additional music opportunities throughout the year. The children can take up keyboard, guitar or ukelele lessons with a private, peripatetic teacher. We have a young voices choir that rehearses from September until the big performance at Co-op live in Manchester in February. This is an amazing experience for some of our pupils to be part of the biggest choir of children! Additionally, we have our own school choir, who perform at care homes and sing the children into school during advent.

Furthermore, we aim to ensure that all children take part in a wide range of musical performances throughout the year. There is an attachment at the bottom of the page to see the full list, but these include – nativities, class performances, assemblies and a KS2 carol service.

EYFS

In EYFS at Charles Darwin, we follow the Kapow music curriculum, which helps lay the groundwork for the music lessons to come in KS1 and KS2. Music is taught as an integral part of topic work through child-initiated and adult led activities. The children are given opportunities to sing, explore sounds and dance to music. Music is often used as a method for learning across the EYFS curriculum, where children are given opportunities to use singing to learn about science, numbers and words too. Children are taught to understand how sounds can be changed, sing simple songs from memory, recognise sound patterns and match movement to music. The children will also get the opportunity to explore a wide range of musical instruments. Overall, the children will be able to develop their musical skills in specific music lessons, across the wider curriculum and through free play in the classroom environment.

Key Stages 1 and 2

At Charles Darwin, the intention is that children gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, composing and performing across a wide variety of musical genres. Our objective is to develop 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. Lessons based around our scheme ‘Kapow’ alongside all of the additional opportunities presented at Charles Darwin ensure that KS1 and 2 children are musically literate.

Making Music Accessible to All 

At Charles Darwin, subject leaders and teachers work together to ensure music is accessible to all. We believe it is an opportunity for all children to shine, and a subject that is enjoyed by the majority of our pupils. Our staff are highly trained, and know how to adapt our teaching and provision to match every pupil’s individual needs.

Whole School Initiatives

Each assembly, music from our composer of the half term is playing as the children enter the hall. This composer is introduced at the first singing assembly of that half term so that children have an understanding of their place in history and the genre of music. There is also a display to celebrate our composers of the half term outside the hall. The weekly singing assemblies allow children to come together and enjoy music.

We engage in a whole-school music afternoon in the summer term to celebrate our achievements in music. This allows children to showcase, individually or in class groups, the songs and pieces of music they have been studying.

Assessment and Recording
At Charles Darwin, assessment is a fundamental part of the teaching process. Assessment is used to inform planning and to facilitate differentiation. The assessment of children’s work is on-going to ensure that understanding is being achieved and that progress is being made. Feedback is given within the lesson as ‘live’ feedback, to ensure children are able to practice and develop their skills in the moment. We use video recording in music lessons, and will often share these videos back to the children so they can hear themselves perform. This helps the children to be able to self-assess and enables peer-assessment too.

Monitoring
As the subject lead (Miss Stojic), it is my responsibility to monitor music, to help make improvements in our curriculum and to ensure children are progressing as they should be. Monitoring takes place termly, and focusses on:

• learning walks to see lessons in action
• pupil voice, so children can share their thoughts
• staff voice, so teacher can share their thoughts
• watching videos of the children’s performances to monitor progress in skills

Impact

Charles Darwin children participate enthusiastically in wide ranging musical lessons, assemblies, events and extravaganzas! They are able to enjoy music as listeners, creators and performers using appropriate vocabulary as well as gaining knowledge and appreciation of composers from history and the present day.

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