Music

What does Music look like at Vicarage Park School?

N.Evans - Subject Lead

Intent:

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. (The National Curriculum)

Music at Vicarage Park School follows the National Curriculum through the use of the Charanga music scheme.  This allows us to provide a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum through the development of musical concepts, knowledge and skills.  Music plays an important part in the development of our school community and is a key part of many of our school celebrations.  This includes opportunities to create, play, perform and enjoy music as part of our Collective Worships, assemblies, key stage performances and through wider opportunities in our local community with events like the Big Sing and L’al Big Sing.

The aims of our music curriculum are to create pupils who:

• Enjoy and appreciate music
• Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music from across a wide range of genres, historical periods, cultures, styles and traditions.
• Learn to sing and use their voices for a variety of different effects.
• Create and compose music confidently, both on their own and with others.
• Use and understand a widening musical vocabulary
• Make judgements and explain their preferences about the quality and style of music.
• Take part in a range of performances, building an awareness of audience.

Implementation:

The requirements of the National Curriculum are delivered at Vicarage Park School through the use of the Charanga scheme of learning.  The suggested scheme of work is followed by teachers to ensure that the skills, knowledge and concepts are addressed appropriately and progressively across the school.  Music lessons are delivered using half termly units which include lessons which follow the following learning sequence:

• Listen and appraise
• Musical activities (including pulse and rhythm)
• Singing and voice
• Playing instruments
• Improvisation / Composition
• Perform and share

In EYFS:

Within our Early Years music forms an integral part of the children’s learning with practitioners aware of the importance of music to a range of areas including number rhymes in Maths and rhyme and rhythm through the learning of phonics.  Music is also addressed through the Expressive Arts and Design strand of the EYFS curriculum outlined below.

Expressive Arts and Design - Being Imaginative and Expressive

• 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.
• Listen attentively to music and move their body to express their response
• Sing in a group or on their own, increasingly matching the pitch and following the melody
• Compose music and dance both alone and in a group

In addition to the standard music curriculum Vicarage Park also offers whole class instrument specific learning through the First Access programme.  This year this will take the form of ukulele learning in Year 3 in the Spring term and recorder lessons in Year 2 in the Summer term.  We see this as an opportunity for children to foster a love of music through the learning of an instrument.  These sessions are led by music specialists and elements of Charanga are included as elements of the sessions.

Performance is a key aspect of music learning and teaching at Vicarage Park Primary School and pupils take part in arrange of performances during their time with us.  These include but are not limited to:

• KS1 Nativities
• Ks2 Christmas Carol Concerts
• Remembrance and Easter performances
• Harvest assembles
• Class celebration assemblies
• Leavers performances
• Community Big Sing and La’al Big Sing events
• The Big Play

Parents are often invited to watch these performances both inside and outside of school.

Pupils in Years 5 and 6 are also given the opportunity to participate in the national Young Voices concert at the AO Arena in Manchester.  The Young Voices choir is an amazing experience for our young people to experience singing on a huge scale with a wide range of schools from across the area and most importantly have fun.  It is also an opportunity to learn and perform a wide range of songs from a variety of genres in addition to learning harmonies and rounds.

Alongside our school music curriculum, pupils have the opportunity to participate in addition 1:1 and small group musical instrument learning with peripatetic teachers.  Parents wishing for their children to participate in these lessons pay for these lessons to take place in school time.