Music touches the very heart of our humanity and a sense of the wonder of music has touched human societies throughout history. Music education offers young people the chance to understand, perform and create in an aural dimension that often sits outside our capacity to describe in words. For many pupils, the music they love will be part of the narrative of their lives and bring colour to the experiences that shape them.’ Ofsted 2021

Intent

Children are encouraged to ‘Be a Musician’ working musically with pitch, duration, rhythm, tempo, dynamic, timbre, texture and structure of music. Singing is the ‘golden thread’ of our music curriculum and we pride ourselves on the ‘voice’ of pupils and their accomplished liturgical ensemble singing. Every child in the school sings in Easter Passion plays and St Gabriel’s Catholic Primary School also stages musical performances, much revered and enjoyed by the whole of our school community.

The children enjoy experimenting, both vocally and instrumentally with percussion instruments, a range of tuned instruments and body percussion, to compose and create short phrases of new and melodic music. Rich, essential, high-level vocabulary is explicitly taught, revisited and reinforced over time to strengthen cognitive connections and enhance use of enriched, informed articulation of learning. Expert teaching in KS2, from our Diocesan Director of Music, raises expectations for all and sets a standard that is reinforced in lessons.

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

Implementation

At St Gabriel’s School, we ensure full coverage of National Curriculum Music by using CUSP (Curriculum with Unity Schools Partnership) Music programme of study, specifically planned to deliver the essential knowledge, skills and understanding for each year group to achieve a mastery approach to deep learning.

Early Years Foundation Stage pupils show attention to sound and music, beginning to explore their voices and enjoy making sounds, responding emotionally and physically to music with movement, expressing their thoughts and feelings about what they have heard. They investigate a range of sound makers and instruments, playing them in different ways. Confidently, they remember and sing a growing repertoire of entire songs, often creating their own or improvising from those they know.

Key stage 1

Pupils should be taught to use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes, play tuned and untuned instruments musically, listen with concentration and understanding a range of high-quality live and recorded music and experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.

Key stage 2

Pupils should be taught to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory. Pupils should be taught to play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression. They should improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music, listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory. They use and understand staff and other musical notations, appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians and develop an understanding of the history of music.

Impact

Outcomes in music portfolios and digital recordings evidence a broad and balanced music curriculum, demonstrating the children’s acquisition and retention of identified key knowledge on their musical learning journey whilst also developing passion and enthusiasm for the joy of music in their everyday lives. Pupil voice reflects children’s involvement in their own learning and metacognition.

The impact of music at St Gabriel’s School can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. The CUSP scheme of work includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against learning objectives and each unit has a quiz which can be used at the beginning or end of the unit. This ensures that children’s progress is accurately monitored and assessed throughout their time in school.

Pupils should leave school equipped with a range of musical skills and knowledge to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and life-long learning, equipping them to become aware of and consider musical careers.

Co-curricular Music

The Tees Valley Music Service offers a host of opportunities for children to sing or play an instrument outside of school. These opportunities include:

• Singing (popular music, musical theatre & classical)
• Guitar (acoustic, electric, ukulele, rock, jazz, folk, pop & classical)
• Keyboard and piano
• Drums and percussion
• Woodwind (bassoon, clarinet, flute, oboe, penny whistle, recorder & saxophone)
• Strings (violin, viola, cello & double bass)
• Brass (baritone, cornet, horn, trombone & trumpet

For more information, please visit the Tees Valley Music Service website by clicking here.