Music
Intent
At Walmley Junior School, our intention is first and foremost to help our children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music. Following the Kapow Primary Music scheme of work, we focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers, and listeners. Our curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities.
Our children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music. They will develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music that they listen to and learn how music can be written down. 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. These skills are vital to children’s development as learners and have a wider application in their general lives outside and beyond school.
Kapow Primary’s Music scheme of work enables pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets outlined in the National curriculum and the aims of the scheme align with those in the National curriculum.
Implementation
Kapow Primary’s Music scheme takes a holistic approach to music, in which the individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences:
Listening and evaluating
Creating sound
Notation
Improvising and composing
Performing
Each five-lesson unit combines these strands within a cross-curricular topic designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Over the course of the scheme, children will be taught how to sing fluently and expressively, and play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control. They will learn to recognise, demonstrate and name the interrelated dimensions of music - pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture and dynamics - and use these expressively in their own improvisations and compositions.
At Walmley Junior School, we follow the spiral curriculum model where previous skills and knowledge are returned to and built upon. Children progress in terms of tackling more complex tasks and doing more simple tasks better, as well as developing understanding and knowledge of the history of music, staff, and other musical notations, the interrelated dimensions of music and more.
In each lesson, pupils will actively participate in musical activities drawn from a range of styles and traditions, developing their musical skills and their understanding of how music works. 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, as well as making cross curricular links with other areas of learning. We use knowledge organisers for each unit to support pupils in building a foundation of factual knowledge by encouraging recall of key facts and vocabulary. Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to be able to deliver a highly effective and robust music curriculum. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD, aiding teachers in their own acquisition of musical skills and knowledge. Kapow supports our teachers to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.
Opportunities to perform with purpose forms part of every year group’s curriculum with vocal and musical performances in the Year 3 Nativity, Year 4 Egyptian performance, Year 5’s Carol Service and the Year 6 Leavers’ Assembly. All pupils participate in weekly whole-school singing assemblies and there are many enrichment opportunities, e.g. choir club, peripatetic lessons, musical theatre club and Young Voices.
Impact
The impact of Kapow Primary’s scheme can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Our children leave Walmley Junior School, 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.
The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary Music scheme of work is that 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 various 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.