Intent
At Warren Academy, the intention is that pupils gain a clear understanding of music through a broad range of musical activities. Pupils are given the opportunity to use innovation, creativity and ambition to express themselves through the power of music both technically and expressively. You will see that pupils are able to produce sound vocally and instrumentally combining their knowledge of musical components, such as pitch and dynamics, to embrace different dimensions to musical pieces as well as the potential to explore expression and communication through creating their unique compositions. Our vision at Warren is to ignite curiosity for the subject, understanding a range of historical composers and genres, respecting the validity of all types of music and how they play their part in an ever-changing discipline. We are committed to ensuring children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community, enabling them to use their musical skills, knowledge, and experiences to involve themselves in music, in a variety of different contexts outside of school. We strive to seek musical talent in our pupils and ensure they are given opportunities to explore their abilities and maximise their potential. Confidence is at the heart of Warren’s musical performances as the children use their musical talents to inspire those around them.
Aims
The national curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:
-To 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.
– To 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
– To understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, dynamics, tempo, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.
Implementation
Children at Warren are immersed in rich and ambitious musical learning every week. Children take part in musical learning within the classroom through exploration of a diverse range of music and musical concepts. The children are taught the inter-related dimensions, such as pitch and tempo, of music throughout their time at Warren to help them describe, understand and take part in musical learning. Teachers at Warren are provided with excellent CPD to give them the confidence and knowledge to teach music with passion and understanding to pass this on directly to the child for two out of the three terms a year at Warren. In diversifying the range of instruments that children get to play, through a specialist, we deliver focused musical learning specifically linked to the year group’s national curriculum objectives supported by clear knowledge and skills progression for one term. Our music lessons include a clear musical concept to be learned through routine practise and understanding of the musical instrument being explored. Throughout the lesson, children will focus upon a musical component, such as dynamics, and explore how this develops their ability to produce sound instrumentally and vocally in an expressive and effective manner. This is then followed by the understanding of music notation and how this transpires to their specified musical instrument, before applying to an appropriate piece of music. Through the diverse range of instrumental lessons we offer, children at Warren are never limited in their learning of instruments, with the opportunity to play six different instruments throughout their time at Warren Primary Academy. Children who learn to play instruments outside of school are provided, and encouraged, to try a different instrument in school.
We teach music in foundation classes as an integral part of the topic work covered during the year. We relate the musical aspects of the children’s work to the objectives set out in the Early Learning Goals (ELGs) which underpin the curriculum planning. Music contributes to a child’s personal and social development. Counting songs foster a child’s mathematical ability and songs from different cultures increase a child’s knowledge and understanding of the world.
We also provide opportunity for children to become part of a greater design, contributing to our singing assemblies to contextualise musical learning in a celebratory manner. Children are able to explore the diverse range of vocal ability through their peers and celebrate musical differences to complete whole school singing ensembles.
We aim to provide children of all diverse backgrounds the opportunity to develop their musical knowledge of understanding by considering the needs of all individuals. This ensures that skills and knowledge are built on year by year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning for all children. Children who demonstrate engagement at a higher level than it already is at Warren are given the opportunity to explore their musical talents further with one-to-one music sessions, learning to play a focused instrument. This ensures that children’s learning is maximised and not limited.
We do everything in our power to ensure that children with special educational needs are given support to ensure they can discover their musical talents. Children are accompanied by their class teacher in their music lessons to ensure that all their pupil’s needs are met. Support used in the classroom for all other subjects are used strategically based around the needs of the specific child to ensure that they can communicate and access their musical skills. Our musical specialist is also briefed and updated regularly on the child’s needs to ensure that lessons are planned with the class’s needs in mind. Further to this, we provide children with higher levels of SEND to experience the world of music in a specially designed environment (The Burrow), experiencing sounds and the feel of instruments in carefully planned lessons lead by our music specialist.
Through our vision of limitless opportunities and endless potential, we provide our children with the opportunity to pursue musical interest beyond the classroom in a variety of ways. For children who possess a desire to extend their musical learning, they have access to our 1:1 tuition sessions with an experienced music teacher, learning how to play a range of musical instruments to become an expert in an instrument that takes their fancy. Children are given the opportunity to visit a variety of musical environments, such as theatres, during their time at Warren to experience the buzz of live performance. Further to this, musical visitors are welcomed through our doors to provide children with exciting performances and enriching experiences. Children are encouraged to perform their learning to build confidence and self-belief through performances in yearly summer concerts as well as singing during our Christmas and Easter services.
Below you can see the development of our music curriculum from EYFS to Year 6: