Intent

We are extremely proud of the musical experiences that the children at our school have. Our music curriculum provides all children with the opportunity to increase self-confidence, creativity and a sense of achievement. Teaching aims to engage and inspire every child to develop a love of music and nurture their talents as musicians. We hope that our children will use music in their everyday lives, for their whole life, to inspire, calm, relax and excite themselves. Children are encouraged to learn to play an instrument. Parents are offered the opportunity to pay for private keyboard or guitar lessons with a tutor during the school day, and in lower Key Stage 2, classes have weekly, whole class brass lessons.. There are many opportunities for performance across the school year where our children develop their confidence. 

Two schemes inform class teaching of music; Rocksteady Feel Good Friday and Kapow Music. During Feel Good Friday sessions, children explore the music curriculum in new and exciting ways with a focus on promoting wellbeing and confidence. It really is 'Feel Good!. The intention of Kapow music is first and foremost to help children feel that they are musical and to develop a life-long love of music. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confidence performers, composers and listeners. Through music, our curriculum helps children develop transferable skills such as team-working, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and presentation and performance skills. It supports these vital skills across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions

Barford St Peter's is a 'singing school'. Not only do children learn to sing using their voices to create and compose music on their own and with others, singing is a familiar part of every day school life. Children sing in daily worship, learn new repertoire in weekly worship through song with a trained musician, perform in our local church and have the option to take part in our hugely popular school choir. Children have opportunities to play both tuned and untuned percussion instruments which they use to create, select and combine sounds. They also listen and move to a wide range of music. This spiral curriculum allows pupils to revisit, embed and extend their musical skills with increasing control and self-confidence. They deepen their understanding of music in the world and the significant of music through history. They will develop an understanding of the cultural context of the music they listen to and learn how music can be written down. All children at Barford St Peter's are encouraged to explore their own musical preferences and discuss these with confidence. 

Implementation

Barford St. Peter's takes a holistic approach to the teaching of music, in which the strands taught are woven together to create enriching and engaging learning experiences. 

The five strands are: 

Performing

Listening

Composing

The history of music

The inter-related dimension of music 

Strands are regularly linked to cross-curricular topics designed to capture the children's imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work, as well as improvisation and teacher-led performances. Lessons are 'hands-on' and incorporate movement and dance elements and make links to other areas of learning. 

Children take part in a weekly music lesson. In lower Key Stage 2, a specialist brass teacher delivers a whole class brass lesson to both classes. These lessons give each child the opportunity to learn a tuned brass instrument. 

Impact

The impact of music teaching in our school is continuously monitored through both formative and summative assessments opportunities. Teachers assess children against the learning intentions and at the end of a unit, there is often a performance element where teachers can make a summative assessment of children's learning. Knowledge organisers are used to provide a highly visual record of the key learning encouraging recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary. 

Children should leave Barford St. Peter's equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and to be able to enjoy and appreciate music throughout their lives. 

Children will : 

Be confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school. 

Show an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and will understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social, and historical contexts in which it is developed. 

Understand the ways in which music can be written down to support performing and composing activities. 

Demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and be able to identify their own personal musical preferences. 

Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National Curriculum for Music.