Intent, Implementation, Impact

Intent

At Parkside Primary School, it is our intent to promote and encourage a love of music. Through a variety of musical opportunities, we aim to engage and inspire our children so they develop in their own self confidence and creativity. Our high-quality music provision enables our children to gain a firm understanding of what music is. They have opportunities to listen, appraise, sing, learn a musical instrument, appreciate different musical genres and music throughout history as well as watch and take part in live performances and understand the value and importance of music in the wider community. The overall skills of singing, listening and appraising, composing and performing are taught alongside the musical elements, the key concepts of pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and musical notation.

Implementation

The music curriculum ensures our children sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in the classroom activities as well as the weekly singing assemblies, various live performances and the extra-curricular opportunities that joining the choir brings. The children learn about a composer from different historical periods at the start of each unit of work and are exposed to a wide range of different composers as part of the weekly listening music in assemblies. The children are also exposed to the language of the different musical periods such as the Baroque, Classical and Romantic period. The elements of music are taught in the classroom lessons so that children are able to use the language of music to dissect it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. In the classroom, the children learn on a weekly basis either the chime bars, glockenspiels and xylophones in Key Stage One, the ukulele in Years Three/Four and the recorder in Years Five/Six. They also learn how to compose focussing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. At Parkside, we embrace the ‘Rosenshine Principles of Learning’ for all pupils including our children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The delivery of the Music curriculum involves the careful planning of lessons ensuring plenty of opportunities for the over learning of key facts and the mastery of key skills.

Music is taught in a subject block of a week comprising of four lessons termly as well as weekly singing assemblies which are twice a week. The children also have the opportunity to sing songs appropriate to their year group on a weekly basis. The Sing Up scheme of work is used from Nursery to Year Six to ensure a wide exposure to different genres of music, with lots of practical opportunities to explore and develop as musicians and singers. Each block is comprised of a listening and appraising opportunity, knowledge of a famous composer from a different historical period and different musical elements. Each year group has an opportunity during the year to compose, improvise and perform. This learning journey is mirrored when it is the children’s turn to learn a musical instrument.

Performances such as Christmas plays, a production at Easter and end of year shows using staff who accompany on different instruments, as well as the extra- curricular opportunities which choir brings, ensures that music is important to life at Parkside all year round.

Impact

At Parkside, we aim for children to leave with the skills to listen to, play and compose music with confidence and creativity, with a breath of knowledge of different composers with an understanding of music from other cultures. We hope to develop our children’s cultural capital through the accumulation of knowledge with music history and develop them as performers and listeners by providing different opportunities for children to become inspired by live and recorded music.