Rationale

Vision

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. At Locking Primary School our vision is to provide a high quality music education that engages and inspires pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.

The Music Curriculum at Locking will:

• enable children to understand musical concepts through a repetition-based approach to learning. Learning about the same musical concept through different musical activities enables a more secure, deeper learning and mastery of musical skills
• Follow a spiral curriculum as musical teaching and learning is not neat or linear.
• Ensure that over time, children can both develop new musical skills and concepts, and re-visit established musical skills and concepts.
• Repeat musical skills to support children in developing a deeper understanding of musical skills and concepts and learning something new.

The Music teaching at Locking will

• be taught as 6 units per year spread over 6 terms
• build on prior knowledge and skills
• ensure pupils will get hands on experiences
• include 3 elements: Listen and Appraise, Musical Activities include Games, Singing, Playing, Improvising and Composing, Perform/Share

Each lesson is designed to last for one hour but can be taught in 45 minutes if there are time constraints. Music lessons will not last less than 45 minutes.

An hour long lesson will include:
Listen and Appraise - 20 mins
Musical Activities - 25 mins
Perform/Share - 15 mins

A 45 minute lesson will include:
Listen and Appraise - 15 mins
Musical Activities - 20 mins
Perform/Share - 10 mins

Assessment of  Music at Locking will:

Formative assessment is key to supporting pupils next steps. All units have lesson by lesson assessment questions. Much of this will be seen verbally in lessons with pupils given time to act on feedback.

Summative assessment through exception reports will be completed at the end of each unit. This assessment will support the teacher including next steps in subsequent units

Curriculum Rationale –  Music

Programme

We follow the Charanga scheme of work which is based on the requirements of the National Curriculum.  Each Unit of Work comprises the of strands of musical learning which correspond with the national curriculum for music:

Listening and Appraising

• Musical Activities
• Warm-up Games
• Optional Flexible Games
• Singing
• Playing instruments
• Improvisation
• Composition
• Performing

Timetabling: each unit lasts 6 weeks at the most. Lessons may be blocked with one longer session in a week or with several shorter sessions across a week, as needed.

The Music Rationale

All activities are based around a song and will start with an opportunity to listen and appraise a song. The lessons will then proceed on to:

• Games embed the Interrelated Dimensions of Music through repetition
• Singing is at the heart of all the musical learning
• Playing instruments with the song to be learnt - tuned/un-tuned classroom percussion and an option to play any band instrument. A sound-before-symbol approach is used but scores are provided as an understanding of notation is introduced to the children
• Improvising with the song using voices and instruments occurs in some Units of Work
• Composing with the song using instruments occurs in some Units of Work

Lessons will end with a Perform/Share section when pupils will share what has taken place during the lesson and work towards performing to an audience.