Music at Upper Beeding

Intent

Why do we teach music? Why do we teach it the way we do?

At Upper Beeding Primary School, it is our intent to nurture a life-long passion and appreciation for all styles of music. Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. We believe that a high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop both a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.

Our aim is to enable children, regardless of background, ability and additional needs to be motivated, effective and independent life-long learners. By offering a stimulating and carefully structured experience in music, we enable each individual pupil to develop the capacity and the capability for artistic thought and critical awareness, developing positive attitudes towards music and experiencing success and satisfaction in their music making.

Implementation

What do we teach? What does this look like?

We recognise that high quality musical experiences will inspire and motivate our children in their music making, which will ultimately raise standards and promote accelerated learning.

We follow the National Curriculum where skills and knowledge are built on year-by-year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning for all children. We provide opportunities for children to sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. Children are taught to play tuned and untuned percussion instruments, recorders / ocarinas and keyboards in their lessons, which enable them to gain an understanding of basic music notation. Children also explore the structure and organisation of music and are taught a range of technical vocabulary to enable them to describe elements such as dynamics, pitch, rhythm and timbre. Music lessons provide opportunities for children to work together, compose, perform and evaluate both their own work and that of others.

Performance opportunities are wide-spread at Upper Beeding Primary school. Christmas is a special time where every child is involved in a public performance whether it be a nativity production or a concert. There are opportunities for children to sing at events outside of the school day (for example, Fubs (PTA) Christmas Market) and to support the local community, carol singing at local nursing homes and other community occasions. Year 3 & 4 lead Harvest Festival celebrations with acting, singing and dancing whilst older children in Upper Key Stage 2, enjoy staging a musical production. Children from Year 4 through to Year 6 are invited to attend the Young Voices O2 annual concert in London, our local primary schools singing festival and Year 5 have the opportunity to be part of a vocal workshop at Christ’s Hospital.

Weekly instrumental lessons are offered and led by visiting peripatetic teachers on the piano, violin, flute, recorder, drums and guitar.

Impact
What will this look like? What tools would we like our children to have when they leave our school?

Our vision is to equip each child with the tools to enable them to play a future positive role in the wider community. We do this by nurturing our children to become ambitious learners so that they demonstrate passion about their learning and are motivated to achieve the best they can, both now and in the future. Through the music curriculum, we encourage children to reach their full potential as musicians, and recognise the development of self-esteem and confidence.

This will be evident through:

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

Awareness and appreciation of different musical traditions and genres

A developing 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 verbal explanations, using musical terminology effectively, accurately and appropriately

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