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Music at Cropredy CE Primary School

We believe that the teaching of music offers our learners the opportunity to develop their creativity, self-expression and confidence. Alongside this, children are able to develop their understanding of a wide range of musical genres and instruments which helps them to broaden their cultural horizons. Music encourages children to understand the importance of practising and perfecting skills as well as engaging in cognitive tasks such as rehearsing, planning and evaluating which have implications for effective learning across the curriculum. We believe in encouraging children on their musical journeys as well as giving them opportunities to connect with others. We hope to foster a lifelong love of music by providing a diverse menu of musical styles which represent different periods of history and cultures.

 

Intent

At Cropredy CE Primary school, we recognise the important role of music in children’s development. Our high quality music education meets the National Curriculum aim of ‘engaging and inspiring pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians,’ in order to ‘increase self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.'

 

All children at Cropredy CE Primary School, from Foundation Stage through to Year 6, are encouraged to express themselves musically and creatively.

 

They are taught to:

  • Sing, play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts.

  • Listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres and styles.

  • Understand how music is produced created and communicated.

  • Improvise and compose music.

  • Use and understand musical notation.

  • Appreciate a range of high-quality music from great composers and musicians.

 

Implementation

Children at Cropredy CE Primary School experience music in a range of contexts:

  • Each class receive a weekly music lesson following the acclaimed Charanga Musical School scheme. Through this scheme, children are taught to develop their musical understanding, make musical judgements, develop their aural memory, express themselves physically and emotionally and create their own musical ideas. Within this scheme, children use both voice and instruments (such as glockenspiel and recorder) to learn, perform, improvise and compose a range of pieces from across the ages and around the world.

  • Music is also taught within our topics across all year groups, supporting children in developing an understanding of music within its cultural and historical context. Music and performance forms a key part of our class assemblies, where children have the opportunity to demonstrate their cross curricular learning.

  • Music also has a significant role in our cultural celebrations throughout the year, with children learning and performing songs for events such as harvest festival, Diwali and remembrance day.

  • Our listening calendar develops children’s cultural capital, exposing children to a wide range of different music genres as well as influential artists or pieces of music.

  • All children learn and perform songs for Christmas performances to parents and the wider community.

  • Children have access to digital music making technology such as ‘Garage Band.’

 

Our curriculum is progressive. We build upon the learning and skill development of the previous years, beginning each unit and lesson with teacher assessments of what children already know in order to inform the learning that follows. Teachers use precise questioning, alongside observation to class to evaluate conceptual knowledge and skills. 

 

Impact

As a result of the musical curriculum that we offer, we hope that our Cropredy musicians will be able to show:

  • A rapidly widening repertoire which they use to create original, imaginative, fluent and distinctive composing and performance work.

  • A musical understanding underpinned by high levels of aural perception, internalisation and knowledge of music, including high or rapidly developing levels of technical expertise.

  • Very good awareness and appreciation of different musical traditions and genres.

  • An excellent understanding of how musical provenance - the historical, social and cultural origins of music - contributes to the diversity of musical styles.

  • The ability to give precise written and verbal explanations, using musical terminology effectively, accurately and appropriately.

  • A passion for and commitment to a diverse range of musical activities.

 

They will leave our school with a love of and appreciation this extremely creative subject and through its study will have increased their ‘self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement’

 (National Curriculum 2014)

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