Christ Church Church of England Primary School Music

Music at Christ Church CE VA Primary School

‘Together, with God’s love, we can achieve anything’

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.

Aims

The national curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:

• 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
• 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
• understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

Intent

We intend that every child shall enjoy their opportunities to learn about music in all its forms – to enjoy the opportunity to make music, listen to and appreciate it and understand the specialist aspects of it – its language, its patterns and its notation.

We want our children to enjoy performing together, and to see the links between music and performance across the Arts.

We will deliver the National Curriculum in music.

Detail

• Music is taught throughout the school, establishing cross curricular links where possible –in English, Early Years, Maths, RE, Physical and Creative development.
• Children in KS2 all receive whole class music tuition on a weekly basis from expert tutors of the Warrington / Halton Music Service. The tutors are quality-assured by the Music subject leader working alongside the former’s manager.
•  Children in Years 3&4 learn to play the recorder.  Children in Year 5&6 learn to play the flute. The skills are cumulative.
• Children in KS2 are introduced to musical notation such that by Y6 they should be able to read music to an age-appropriate standard.
• As well as Music lessons in class, whole school singing sessions take place weekly and are led by a Senior member of staff.
• Pupils are given the opportunity to listen to a range of Music at the beginning and end of our Acts of Worship and hymns / songs of Praise are sung during our acts of Collective Worship.
• A Choir Club facilitates children’s interest in performance.
• Other Choirs and Music groups are formed to meet the school needs e.g. for Church services, performances for the local community, Christmas or for concerts with other schools. The School participates in the Primary Arts Network which encompasses artisitic, musical and performance elements culminating in a multi-schools performance evening at the Parr Hall in Warrington.
• Instrumental groups are encouraged to perform in Assembly whenever performances are ready to be heard.
• We use the Charanga website throughout the school.
• Music Express is also used in KS 1.  This can also be supplemented by the subject leaders and the teacher’s own input to match and complement our curriculum. This scheme also provides the necessary details, activities, accompaniments and recordings on CD to support our Music teaching.
•  Children with a particular interest or aptitude in Music can be given the opportunity to extend their education in a variety of ways, for example, recorder groups, choir, instrumental performances in Assembly, undertaking exams. Pupils experiencing difficulties are given extra encouragement by working in a small group with the teacher or with a more musically-able child.
• Our music teachers teach the flute, the violin and the guitar to individuals whose parents wish to pay for private lessons in addition to the whole class tuition they receive in school.

Impact

• Our Primary Arts Network participation is successful and well-received; children perform dance to music –see photographs around school.

• Children’s individual musical specialist talents are developing well and are showcased at events including Poetry Recital interludes and Christmas / other Performances.

A parent wrote:

‘I would like to congratulate all the staff and children involved in last night’s performances at the Parr Hall.  So much effort, talent, organisation and attention to detail were put in by every school.  It was fantastic that the children were given an opportunity to take part. As a family we felt very proud to watch. The whole evening was wonderful and extremely uplifting.

Thank you!’

• Children through monitoring are increasingly able to articulate their growing knowledge of musical terms and concepts. We are working to strengthen and make more overt the cross-curricular links between music and other subjects.