Music

"Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul." Plato

Click here to view our Music Development Plan 25-26

Music connects us through people and places in our ever-changing world. It is creative, collaborative, celebratory and challenging. In our schools, music can bring communities together through the shared endeavour of whole-school singing, ensemble playing, experimenting with the creative process and, through the love of listening to friends and fellow pupils, performing. (Model Music Curriculum 2021)

We aim to encourage the children, through music and regardless of their needs, to:

Be Imaginative and Expressive
Enjoy communicating effectively
Develop sound production and vocal imitation skills.
Sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together.
Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others, and, when appropriate – try to move in time with music.
Listen attentively and respond to what they hear

Music and the National Curriculum

The National Curriculum, 2014, emphasises the teaching of Knowledge, Skills and Understanding in music, through the elements of Performance, Composition and Appraisal. These aspects are interwoven wherever possible in activities. Music teaching at St Elphege’s exceeds the National. Curriculum expectations.

Specific objectives

We aim to encourage the children to:

KS1

Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians,
Learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, use technology appropriately and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence.
Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the interrelated dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

KS2

Sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.
Play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression.
Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the interrelated dimensions of music.
Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory.
Use and understand staff and other musical notations.
Appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians.
Develop an understanding of the history of music.
Be introduced to the work of a wide range of musicians and composers in order to develop their appreciation of the richness of our diverse cultural heritage. This should include music from a variety of periods, cultures and styles.

Implementation

Music is taught using a Kodály-inspired approach to music, by specialist music teachers (the Music Coordinator, who is a qualified Kodály practitioner, and an HLTA) We encourage the children to be active learners-they experience the elements of music, before they are made conscious.

“Research has shown time and again that children need opportunities to move in class. Memory and movement are linked, and the body is a tool of learning, not a roadblock to or a detour away from it” Lara N. Dotson-Renta (2016) so, much of the children’s musical learning includes elements of movement.

Singing plays a major role across the Federation and is encouraged throughout the school-children are encouraged to sing material before learning to play it on an instrument. Kodály’s principles state that children should be exposed to high-quality music ’of intrinsic value’ and, adhering to his ideals, much of the music across the federation is taught using folk music. Through the use of this huge bank of appropriate material, coupled with suitable art-music of varying genres, we present and make conscious new musical elements: the songs help children to discover and remember. Using songs, art music and movement, children also learn about the structure of music.

In addition to musical experience, singing provides additional encounters with language- exposure to songs where the lyrics scan correctly, are often repeated and sung at a slower pace than spoken language, enabling the children to begin to understand the natural rhythm of English and this aids the development of their speech and communication. This is particularly helpful for children with English as an Additional Language but also for those who find reading, writing or speaking challenging.

Small, incremental steps and much repetition ensure that knowledge and skills, learnt through singing are embedded in the long-term memory and can be applied to other aspects of musical learning.

The experiences that the children have with their parents at home are also of great value and contribute towards a child's sense of musical awareness. Whole Class Ensemble Tuition is delivered by the Music Coordinator and a visiting violin teacher. In these lessons and in the Y6 ukulele programme, a proportion of the lesson is given over to musicianship, where again, songs and games are used to prepare the musical element which is to be made conscious in later lessons.

Training for class teachers has been delivered by the music co-ordinator.

Infant and Junior choirs and String Group are open to all; no audition is required. They are led by experienced music practitioners after school. Whole School Singing Practice takes place every week for 40 mins, again led by experienced practitioners. In these sessions, the children learn new songs and hymns for Celebration of the Word and masses and secular songs which reinforce their PSHE lessons. In addition to this, the KS2 singing practice incorporates an element of music history, where the children experience music from the Renaissance to the current day and discover some of the features of each era’s music.

Instrumental lessons are offered on Piano and Violin. Classroom Music and peripatetic lessons are timetabled throughout the day: WCET is at a fixed time each week, but Peripatetic lessons are timetabled on a rota, to avoid clashes with the same lessons each week.

Performance opportunities

Performance opportunities are many and varied throughout the year, allowing children to show what they have learned and to experience live performance: The school choirs and String Group take part in many local festivals. In addition to this, they perform at local events, thus strengthening links with the local community and raising the profile of music both within and outside school. At school, in the Spring Term, we plan a formal musical evening concert, in the Summer Term, all singers and instrumentalists have a chance to compete for the Young Musician and Young Pianist trophies. In the Summer Term, Y6 stage a musical production as their end of year show, which involves the whole year group.

Many opportunities are provided to watch and take part in musical performances throughout the year, both in and outside of school and on World Music Day, performers from many different cultures share their music with the school.

Continuity and Progression

Musical planning takes into account the differences in the abilities of our children. Activities are selected to enable children to make progress and resources are provided accordingly. Differentiation within a class is provided by:

· Open-ended tasks which can have a variety of responses.

· Tasks which increase in difficulty in which children are encouraged to challenge themselves: not all children will complete every task in every session, but all will have the opportunity to extend their learning.

· In part-playing/singing, pieces are ‘deconstructed', in order to create more challenging parts for higher-achieving children and simpler parts for those who need them. The choice of which part to play usually rests with the children and this encourages self-assessment.