Carlton Junior and Infant School

Music

Music Policy

Music Policy

Introduction

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 talents 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 the best in the musical canon. (National Curriculum Purpose of Study).

Aims

At Carlton Junior Infant School, we aim to:

To encourage awareness, enjoyment and appreciation of Music in all its forms.

To offer every child the opportunity to perform at every stage of their musical development.

To develop imagination and creativity.

To help children of all abilities develop music attitudes and to experience success and satisfaction in Music.

To offer opportunities to compose, listen, perform and appraise.

To develop the musical language and vocabulary of children in school.

To allow all children to build up a working knowledge of music throughout his history, cultures and styles.

We have built a musical curriculum that not only develops learning and results in the acquisition of knowledge, but also an inclusive curriculum that improves well-being and provide ample opportunities for all children to succeed through Inclusive Quality First Teaching (IQFT).

Objectives of the Music Curriculum

Children will be taught a range of knowledge and skills in both Key Stage One and Key Stage Two. 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.

Foundation Stage:

Children in Early Years are taught to:

Expressive Arts and Design

Explores and learns how sounds and movements can be changed.

Sings familiar songs, e.g. pop songs, songs from TV programmes, rhymes, songs from home.

Taps out simple repeated rhythms.

Develops an understanding of how to create and use sounds intentionally.

Uses movement and sounds to express experiences, expertise, ideas and feelings. Experiments and creates movement in response to music, stories and ideas.

Sings to self and makes up simple songs.

Creates sounds, movements, drawings to accompany stories.

Notices what other children and adults do, mirroring what is observed, adding variations and then doing it spontaneously.

Begins to build a collection of songs and dances.

Makes music in a range of ways, e.g. plays with sounds creatively, plays along to the beat of the song they are singing or music they are listening to. Chooses particular movements, instruments/sounds, colours and materials for their own imaginative purposes.

Uses combinations of art forms, e.g. moving and singing, making and dramatic play, drawing and talking, constructing and mapping.

Responds imaginatively to art works and objects, e.g. “this music sounds likes dinosaurs”, “that sculpture is squishy like this [child physically demonstrates]”, “that peg looks like a mouth”.

Literacy

Recognises rhythm in spoken words, songs, poems and rhymes.

Claps or taps the syllables in words during sound play.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Shows confidence in choosing resources and perseverance in carrying out a chosen activity.

Early Learning Goal - Being Imaginative and Expressive Children at the expected level of development will: - Sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs; - Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others, and – when appropriate – try to move in time with music.

Key Stage One:

Pupils are taught to:

Use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes;

Play tuned and un-tuned 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 interrelated dimensions of music.

Key Stage Two:

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 are 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 interrelated dimensions of music;

Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory;

Use and understand staff and other musical notation;

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.

Performing Skills

Children will be taught to sing a wide variety of songs in all year groups throughout school and to use their expressively with correct technique building up to part-singing in Upper KS2. Children will perform in assemblies and in shows and concerts both locally and nationally throughout the year. From Early Years the children will learn a musical instrument alongside their singing lesson.

General Musicianship, Composition and Music in ICT

Year 1. General Musicianship, Ocarina, Composition

Year 2. Recorder and composition and Music in ICT

Year 3. Glockenspiel, composition and Music

Year 4. Ukulele, composition and ICT

Year 5. Keyboard, composition and ICT

Year 6. Keyboard, African drums, steel pans composition

Each Year group will be expected to perform in assemblies as well as musical concerts throughout the year. The Music clubs in school will allow those children who want to continue playing the opportunity to do so.

Composing Skills

Children will create musical patterns and will be shown how to explore, select and organise musical ideas, recording these in a variety of ways (e.g. pictorial score, by means of a digital recorder, tape recorder or video or using notation). Children will be taught how to create compositions from both a musical and non-musical starting point. In Year 2, children will be taught how to compose using Chrome Music labs software and in Year 3 and 4 they will use the Garage band software on their individual ipads.

Appraising Skills

Children will be given the opportunity to explore and explain their own ideas and feelings about music, using music, dance, expressive language and musical vocabulary. They will analyse and compare sounds and will become confident at suggesting improvements for their own work and that of others. They will also learn to appreciate music from different time periods, cultures and styles and learn how to talk about the performances in a musical way linked to the interrelated dimensions of music.

Listening and applying knowledge and understanding

Children should be able to listen with concentration and to internalise and recall sounds with increasing aural memory. They will develop a growing awareness of the eight Musical elements: pitch, duration, pace, dynamics, texture, timbre, form, silence. They will learn that time and place can influence the way music is created, performed and heard, that Music is produced in different ways and is described through invented and standard notations.

Approach

Music should be taught throughout the school, establishing cross-curricular links where possible, e.g.: Literacy, Early Years, Maths, Physical and Creative development.

Pupils are given the opportunity to listen to a range of music during their instrumental lessons, singing lessons, as well as during assemblies.

Choirs and Music groups are formed to meet the school needs. These are run during lunchtime and after school clubs. The music leader will co-ordinate all of the music clubs run by school staff as well as those run by the local music service.

The Head teacher and SLT lead regular whole school assemblies, which include singing at least once week.

Differentiation

Those children with a particular interest or aptitude in music can be given the opportunity to extend their education in a variety of ways, for example, Choirs, Ukulele Club, African Drumming Club, Keyboard Club as well as instrumental performances in assembly.

Peripatetic teachers are used to teach keyboard, ukulele, steel pans, drums, and keyboard lessons in school.

Classes will be given the opportunity to respond to national initiatives.

Pupils experiencing difficulties can be given extra encouragement by working in a small group with the teacher or with a more musically able child. Most instruments have been adapted for the SEN children to make these easier for the children to access and achieve success.

Assessment

Assessment will form an integral part of the teaching and learning of Music. This will be done by observing children working and performing, by listening to their responses and by examining work produced. Evidence will be kept via, videos, the school website, twitter and the learning journals.

Children will be assessed through target tracker. The children will be assessed according to various outcomes that demonstrate the building of musical capacities, understanding, skills and knowledge. Following the marking policy, children will be assessed in music as the following:

1 – Working towards Age Related Expectations

2 – Working at Age Related Expectations (ARE)

3 – Working Above Age Related Expectations (Greater Depth – ARE+)

Each unit of work has criteria, outcomes, moments and methods for diagnostic, formative and summative assessment

Resources

We have a huge range of music equipment and resources that can easily be moved around the school.

There are full year sets of ocarinas, ukuleles, African drums, recorders, keyboards and stage piano.

We have a piano in Reception as well as the music room and keyboards available for use.

A Sound system in the hall.

The school has access to Out Of The Ark Online Music Resource.

Our CD collection and song books are kept in each classroom. The CD collection will be extended as funding allows. Where possible CDs purchased for the school are copied to the network to be shared across the school.

Roles and Responsibilities

Music Leader

The music leader is responsible for co-ordinating all musical activity within the school. Where a specialist teacher is required it is the music subject leader’s role to liaise closely with the specialist and to monitor the children’s progress on a regular basis. Also, the music leader is required to manage the music budget and is accountable for all of the instruments in school.

It is also the role of the music leader to find appropriate assembly songs and to teach these to the children ready for assemblies. There will be several musical trips and concerts throughout the year and it the music subject leader’s responsibility to arrange groups to perform and to sort out the required paperwork and transport to the venues. Finally, it is also their duty to produce planning and resources for each lesson and to work with all staff around school and support them in year group productions and concerts, managing and directing these when necessary.

Head Teachers Role

The Head teacher’s role is to monitor the music leader and support and help with the musical activities that the children are engaged in. Also to allow regular opportunities during school time for children to perform and demonstrate the skills they have acquired during their time at the school. Finally, to liaise with the music leader and to make sure all staff are fully supportive and actively involved with all aspects of music around school.

Staff

It is the role of all staff in school to actively engage in any music session they are involved with and to encourage the children to sing and always try their best. It is paramount they support the music teacher with behaviour, but above all allow the children to enjoy the music lessons and express themselves in an appropriate manner. Teaching music to large groups of children is a team effort and staff need to be aware that from time to time they will be required to lead groups of children when part singing or in shows and productions.

Approved by Governors

Name: Nadia Sajjad

Date: 27th November 2023

To be reviewed: September 2024

Inter-related Dimensions Of Music

2014 Music Curriculum – the ‘inter-related dimensions of music’

In the ‘aims’ and the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 content of the 2014 Music National Curriculum it talks about the ‘inter-related dimensions of music’. This basically means the elements of practical musicianship.

PULSE: The child needs to be able to feel and express the PULSE in a piece of music as a foundation to their musical understanding. PULSE is like a regular heartbeat running steadily through the music.

PITCH: The next is PITCH which is the melody and the way the notes change from low to high and vice versa.

RHYTHM: For some reason they use the word ‘duration’ but they basically mean RHYTHM (which is a much more exciting word!) If you were singing a song, the rhythm would follow the pattern of the words. If you sing a song and clap the words, your clapping would be different to the PULSE. This analogy can be taken as a starting point and later applied to music with no words.

DYNAMICS: Loud and soft

TEMPO: Fast and slow

TIMBRE: The type of sound – whisper/hum/sing/talk (examples with the voice) or tinkly/hard/soft (examples with instruments

TEXTURE: Layers of sound

STRUCTURE: The way the music is laid out –e.g. 4 notes in a bar, 4 bars in a phrase etc (a bit like how words, sentences and paragraphs are put together in writing)

APPROPRIATE MUSICAL NOTATIONS’ Anything that you can use to read music from, whether they be made up symbols to be read in a particular order, stick notation, solfa symbols or traditional stave notation…

The only element of musical skills that has changed from the previous National Curriculum, is the addition of ‘stave notation’ in the Key Stage 2 requirements. For most children in a primary classroom, this would be the beginning stages of reading music.