Buswells Lodge Music Curriculum Statement

Intent, Implementation and Impact

Intent

The intention of Buswells Lodge Primary School’s music scheme of work is first and foremost, to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life long love of music. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that the children need in order to become confident performers, composers and listeners. Our curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all 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 learn 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 leave a wider application in the general lives outside and beyond school.

Our Scheme of work enables pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets outlines in the National Curriculum and the aims of the scheme align with those in the National Curriculum.

Implementation

Buswells Lodge’s music scheme of work takes a holistic approach to music, in which the individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences:

• Performing
• Listening
• Composing
• The history of music
• The inter-related dimensions of music

Each five-lesson unit combines these strands within a cross-curricular topic designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Over the course of the scheme, children will be taught 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 progressions of skills and knowledge document shows skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop year on year to ensure attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage.

Our music scheme has been adapted from the Kapow Primary Music scheme of work -  this follows a 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 and more.

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 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 includes multiple teacher videos taken from Kapow Primary. These videos develop teachers’ subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD, aiding teachers in their own acquisition of musical skills and knowledge.  This scheme of work has been developed and adapted with the understanding that some teachers do not feel confident delivering the music curriculum and every effort has been made to ensure that they feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.

Impact

Buswells Lodge’s Music scheme of work can be monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Our school has adapted the Kapow music scheme of work, enabling us to ensure that 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. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils by providing a highly visual record of the key learning from the unit, encouraging recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary.

Pupils should leave our primary school equipped with a range of skills to enable them to success in the secondary education and to be able to enjoy and appreciate music throughout their lives.

The extended impact of following our scheme of work for music is that children will:

• Be confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school.
• Show and 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 context 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 enthusiastic for music and be able to identify their own personal musical preferences.
• Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National Curriculum for Music.