Music

Our Music Intent - The Roots of our Music Curriculum

Our Music curriculum intent is linked to our school values and sets out the core principles of our curriculum.

Loving: Here at Sawtry Infant School, we believe that Music is important because it can provide fulfilment throughout life. It is a powerful, unique form of communication that can change the way pupils feel, think and act. It transcends different cultures, abilities and generations. We explore music from different cultures, ages and styles, allowing the children time to respond both physically and verbally. Children are encouraged to evaluate first their own work and then that of others, identifying positives as well as looking for things to improve.

Inspirational: Our children are inspired to create and respond to music, expressing themselves creatively. We ensure at least one live music experience each year, enabling the children to meet real musicians and encounter a range of instruments we may not have in school.  Music is used as an important part of celebrations across the curriculum and across the year. Weekly music lessons are supplemented with a weekly whole school singing assembly, building that feeling of belonging, being part of a community and enjoying singing together. Extra-curricular clubs allow children to build and develop their musical learning and enable further opportunities for performance.

Fun: We aim for all children to find enjoyment in producing, listening to and responding to music. Children sing both as a class and as a whole school on a regular basis. Music is an essential part of celebration times across the school and all children get to sing and make music as part of a performance to others at regular intervals throughout the year. We use a range of both tuned and untuned percussion instruments to support music teaching and learning, developing a wide range of skills.

Educational: We use the scheme Music Express to help plan and teach Music lessons. Our curriculum is focused on the development of skills, such as moving to and keeping to the pulse of a piece of music, repeating and creating rhythm patterns, and understanding the basics of pitch, dynamics, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations. Repetition and practise are key to musical development so music lessons are timetabled on a weekly basis rather than in termly blocks like other foundation subjects. This allows children the time to practise and embed skills over a long time period. Music lessons include a variety of movement, singing and instrumental work in each unit. Music and activities chosen for music lessons, singing assembly and other activities or celebrations across the curriculum are checked to be age appropriate both in content and musical challenge.

Working at Greater Depth

Children who are working at Greater Depth in Music, by the end of Key Stage 1, will be able to:

• Find, use, respond to, recognise and describe a range of high, middle and low sounds.
• Explore, use, respond to, recognise and describe patterns of long and short sounds and demonstrate a steady beat.
• Recognise and describe, choose and use loud, moderate, quiet and silence.
• Independently choose and use school percussion instruments for purpose, describe and demonstrate their sound properties.
• Recognise and describe, choose and use simple structures used for a purpose.
• Find, use, respond to and describe vocal sounds, chant and sing rhymes and songs illustrating character and/or mood-building rhythmic and melodic memory with accuracy of intonation.
• Independently choose and use an increased range of sounds (including body sounds) using correct percussion techniques with the use of the dominant hand demonstrating an understanding of some of the dimensions.