Music at St Charles’ Catholic Primary School 

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School we aspire to be musicians! Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. We want out children to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, thus increasing their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.

Our music curriculum enables our children develop their musical knowledge, understanding and ability. We want our children to enjoy their music lessons and embrace the musical opportunities they are presented with!

Curriculum Intent

A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.

The intent of St Charles’ Catholic Primary School’s Music Curriculum is to promote curiosity and a love of learning.  It is ambitious and empowers children to become independent and resilient when performing, listening, composing and understanding the history of music.

Our intention is first and foremost to help children feel that they are musical and to develop a life long love of music. 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 works and across the generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of traditions and communities.

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 earn how music can be written down. Through music, our curriculum helps children develop transferrable 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.

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, we use Kapow Primary’s scheme of work which 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. It also covers all aspects of the Model Music Curriculum which was published by the DfE in March 2021.

Implementation

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, music is taught using the Kapow Primary’s scheme of work. The scheme takes a holistic approach to music, in which the individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences: The five areas are:

Performing

Listening

Composing

The History of Music

The Inter-Related Dimensions of Music

Each five lesson units combines these strands within a cross-curricular topic designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Over the course of their learning, 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 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.

Our Music Curriculum Overview shows which units cover which of the National Curriculum attainment targets as well as the strands of Performing, Listening, Composing, The History of Music and The Inter-Related Dimensions of Music within it.

Our Music Progression of Skills Knowledge and Vocabulary shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop year on year to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage.

Our curriculum follows 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 as well as the interrelated dimensions of music.

The Music Medium Term Curriculum Map shows when each unit is taught in each year group and that meaningful cross curricular links are made across subjects when and wherever possible, linking prior knowledge to new learning which deepens children’s knowledge, understanding and skills and promotes a broad and balanced curriculum.

Short term plans set out ‘Before the Lesson’ knowledge for the teacher, learning objective(s), success criteria, national curriculum links, key questions, differentiation and assessment. The lesson itself is structured with a ten minute ‘Attention Grabber’ and thirty minute ‘Main Event’ and a ten minute ‘Wrapping Up’. The majority of lessons include videos, online resources and Powerpoint presentations to engage the children.

Staff are encouraged to teach a weekly music lesson which helps to ensure sufficient time is allocated to music and that musical subject matter can be revisited frequently, improving the potential for our children to retain what they have been taught, to alter their long-term memory and thus improve the rates of progress they make.

Impact

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, the music scheme can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives and at the end of each unit there is often a performance element where teachers can make a summative assessment of pupils’ learning. Assessment quizzes and knowledge catchers are also available which can be used at the start or end of a unit to measure pupils progress.

At the end of their learning journey at St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, the implementation of the music curriculum should enable pupils to leave primary 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 will be that children:

• 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 ways in which music can be written down to support performing and composing activities
• Demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and to be able to identify their own personal musical preferences
• meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National Curriculum for music

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.

Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit 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 include multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD, aiding teachers in their own acquisition of musical skills and knowledge. Further CPD development opportunities are also available via webinars with Kapow Primary music specialists.

St Charles’ Catholic Primary School understands that not every teacher feels confident delivering the music curriculum and every effort has been made to ensure that they feel supported by the music subject lead and by the use of Kapow Primary’s music scheme of work to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensures pupils’ progression.

Music Curriculum Programmes of Study: Key Stages 1 and 2

Purpose of study

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.

Aims

The national curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:

• 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 inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

Attainment Target

By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study.

Subject Content – Key stage 1

Pupils should be taught to:

• use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes  play tuned and untuned instruments musically
• listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music  experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.

Subject Content – Key Stage 2

Pupils should be taught to 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.

Pupils should be taught to:

• 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 inter-related 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.

Meet Our School Choir

This year our school choir enjoyed the virtual Peace Proms concert which took place in March as the concert could not be live at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool in March due to COVID.

Our School Choir have previously performed in the Arena  and have sung in the Metropolitan Cathedral and in venues in our locality.

More photographs are available on the Cross Border Orchestra Facebook page.

Prior to COVID, in June 2019, 14 members of our school choir performed at ‘The Good Shepherd Mass’ in the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Outside Companies 

We have enjoyed performances from Key Strings…

and Presto Music…