Music
Music Intent
At Weeke Primary School our children are musicians! Our intention is to inspire all children to love music through access to an engaging and fun curriculum where children have opportunities to play an instrument and sing.
Children will be exposed to different forms of music and instruments that are both relevant to present day, as well as experiencing musical styles throughout history. Through this breadth of exposure to music, children will consequently grow an appreciation and love of music.
Our music curriculum, whilst being accessible for all, will also strive to provide a platform for children to become more independent learners, reflect upon their learning and develop their resilience within the musical world. Throughout the music curriculum, our children will grow in confidence in their creative ability and risk taking.
Through their class music lessons and enrichment opportunities, children at Weeke will be inspired and encouraged to become musicians, performers, music technologists, producers, composers and so much more!
Music Implementation
At Weeke Primary we believe that all children should be taught the five main strands of music:
Performing
Listening
Composing
The history of music
The interrelated dimensions of music
Music is taught using the Kapow music programme, which ensures each unit combines these strands. Kapow follows a spiral approach where each year group unit build upon their listening, composing, performing and musical knowledge skills. Therefore children are able to make progress and increase their confidence in becoming enthusiastic musicians. Throughout the complete scheme of work, children are taught how to sing fluently and with expression and play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control. They will also be taught the interrelated dimensions of music (pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture and dynamics) and use these expressively in their own improvisations, compositions and appraisals.
The Kapow music programme also ensures that the units cover each of the National Curriculum attainment targets. The skills children are taught year on year mean that attainment targets are securely met at the end of each key stage.
Children are active participants in each lesson and we ensure that a practical approach is applied so children can enjoy and appreciate the music curriculum to its fullest potential. Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies, ranging from independent work, paired and group work as well as improvisation and teacher led performances. Children will be encouraged to take risks and experiment with their voices and instruments and grow their musical vocabulary. Our practical music lessons also ensure children develop resilience and respect for others, though being experimental and justifying their own opinions of their own and others compositions.
Each lesson provides opportunities for differentiation and activities provide necessary scaffolding so everyone can enjoy, achieve and make progress as well as being stretched when required. Knowledge organisers support children in building their factual knowledge by encouraging recall of facts and key vocabulary.
By using the Kapow music programme, we can ensure that all staff have the appropriate subject knowledge to teach each lesson effectively. Kapow is ideal for specialist and non specialist teachers as the guidance for each lesson is clear, alongside providing clear assessment opportunities and a wide variety of resources for each lesson. There are supporting CPD videos for each unit which will provide staff with additional information and guidance with their musical skills and knowledge. Kapow also provide webinars with their music specialists which provide further valuable CPD opportunities.
All children will receive a 1 hour lesson per week for music. This is so children can be exposed to a varied and exciting music curriculum throughout their time at Weeke Primary. Participating in regular music lessons promotes creativity, positive well being, an opportunity to develop new skills as well as building on existing ones if a child already participates in peripatetic music lessons. Our children also enjoy performing with a purpose and often parents are either invited into school to watch their child’s performance or we record their performance to publish on Google Classroom.
As well as our comprehensive music lessons, we also offer a wide range of other exciting musical opportunities. All children have the opportunity to participate in peripatetic music lesson, recorder club in years 2, 3 and 4, Listen to me in Years 2 and 5, choir, Young Voices and the Year 6 end of year production.
If you wish to find out more about our Kapow music approach, use the link below:
Music in Early Years
Music Blueprint
Music Impact
Our use of the Kapow music scheme of work means that all staff are able to plan and deliver effective, challenging and enjoyable units work, which allows for progression across the school as well as ensuring all strands of the National Curriculum are covered. Our music curriculum enables all children to make good progress because it is accessible, relevant and enjoyable for all.
Kapow provides regular opportunities for assessment of children, including a performance element at the end of each unit so teachers can make a summative assessment of children’s learning and accurately track their progress and understand their next steps. Our use of knowledge organisers for each unit support children’s learning by providing a visual record of the key learning from each unit, encouraging recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary.
Our aim is for children to leave Weeke Primary School equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and to be able to enjoy and appreciate music throughout their lives.
Our music curriculum is expected to impact our children in the following ways:
Be confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school.
Show an 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 contexts 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 enthusiasm for music and be able to identify their own personal musical preferences.
Meet the end of key stage expectations as outlined in the National Curriculum for music.
Children Enjoying a visit from Winchester College Jazz Band
What next for our pupils?
A proportion of our children in Year 6 go on to our local secondary school - Henry Beaufort. We work closely with our secondary schools to support the best possible transition not only for the whole children but to ensure their successful curriculum journey continues. This includes curriculum opportunties where we visit the school or we have specialist teachers come to teach our children key knowledge, skills and understanding.
To gain a further understanding of the next step in our children's learning journey please visit Henry Beauforts curriculum pages. Here you will see how the Primary curriculum at Weeke enables the children to continue to make progress in given subjects.