Music

Music

Music is taught to all children at St Mary’s by a specialist music teacher with the aim of inspiring a lifelong love of the subject and to foster the pupils’ musical talents and in doing so will increase their confidence, self-esteem, creativity and sense of achievement.

Our objectives include:

  • To develop skills in making and listening to a wide range of music from different genres, times and cultures;
  • To connect with the children’s own musical lives;
  • To provide opportunities for children to develop an understanding of how sounds are made using their bodies and instruments and how the sounds can be organised into musical structures
  • To understand how music is composed and notated;
  • To provide opportunities for solo and group performances in lessons and to develop listening and appraisal skills;
  • To celebrate the achievements of pupils through providing regular performance opportunities and through displays;
  • To celebrate the place of music at St Mary’s School by sharing musical learning with families and regularly involving the school community in musical activities.

 

Music is taught in weekly class sessions throughout the school:

 

Nursery and Reception (EYFS): we encourage playful exploration of the voice, body percussion and instruments through musical games and carefully combined child-initiated and adult-led activities. Singing is at the heart of musical learning in EYFS and they are introduced to music from many genres and it is often linked to their class topic work.

 

Key Stage 1: children have more opportunities to lead their own music making and are taught how to sing and play simple tuned percussion instruments using the Kodaly solfege method of learning rhythm and pitch notation. In addition they have a 30-minute weekly recorder lesson throughout the school year which is led by a specialist instrumental teacher from the Wandsworth Music Service as part of their Wider Opportunities scheme, and this culminates in a concert at the end of each term. They also have the opportunity to join the KS1 Choir which rehearses after school on Mondays, and through this they learn more about singing techniques and are given further performance opportunities both within and outside school.

 

Key Stage 2: music lessons become more project-based where the provision is a combination of pupil-led group and paired work. Learning about musical notation and the musical elements underpin each project and their compositions are recorded so that the children can review and evaluate their work each term. Music technology lessons are available to all KS2 pupils at lunchtimes, provided by M:Tech, and peripatetic music lessons are available for those wishing to learn a woodwind instrument, the violin or piano. All pupils in Year 3 learn the flute for the whole school year with a specialist instrumental tutor from the Wandsworth Music Service in weekly half-hour lessons and they perform at the end of each term. Any pupil learning a musical instrument or who is a budding solo singer has the opportunity to perform on an informal basis in assembly, or in a more formal setting in the annual Spring Concert. All pupils have the opportunity to join the KS2 Choir which rehearses after school on Fridays and through which they continue to learn more advanced singing techniques and singing in harmony, and they perform at a variety of external venues, including the Young Voices Concert at the O2 Arena.

 

Music Curriculum Intent

Take a look at how we sequence the music curriculum in our school:

Music Curriculum Intent

 

Further information

GOV.UK provides documents from the Department for Education relating to the National Curriculum’s statutory programmes of study for Music. Please click the link below to explore:

⇒ GOV.UK National Curriculum: Music

Information

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