Music

EYFS: Pupils begin Listen to, move to and talk about music, expressing their feelings and responses.

In the Early Years and Foundation Stage, children study Music through the overarching concept, Expressive arts and design. By giving children a range of experiences, we aim to give children an insight into new musical worlds whilst increasing their knowledge and understanding of various concepts, such as: different kinds of music from across the globe, to listen attentively to music, offer opportunities for children to go to a live performance, such as a pantomime, play, music or dance performance and give children the opportunity to work with a Peripatetic music teacher on rhythm and rhyme. Children's vocabulary is enriched through careful and progressive planning, including a wide range of texts, fiction and non-fiction stories, poetry, rhymes and songs.

KS1: Pupils begin to develop knowledge about singing and playing musically. They begin to develop composition skills and begin to explore music from around the world.

In Key Stage One, children begin to develop skills and knowledge associated with using their voices, musical instruments, understanding high-quality live and pre-recorded music, and begin to experiment with sound by creating, selecting and combining different sounds. Children develop understanding of different kinds of music and begin to understand and appreciate high quality pre-record and live music using a range of resources such as videos, live performance, talent shows and working with musicians. Using tuned and untuned instruments, children produce their own repeated rhythmic patterns and explore tempo and dynamics. Learning begins with exploring speed and volume within music, then extends to enable children to apply their own experiences and learned musical skills in a broader context.

KS2: Pupils develop a more in depth understanding of singing and playing musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures.

In Key Stage Two, children's ability to understand more complex processes broadens, enabling them to make more sense of the characteristics of a range of techniques used to create and compose music. They revisit and enhance specific learning from KS1, such as an in-depth study of untuned instruments using Djembe drums to develop a range of hand drumming techniques and extending their knowledge of rhythms looking at performing rhythms with multiple tones. Here, children participate in opportunities to learn an instrument such as Ukulele, guitar and Rock Band allowing our children to play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression. They also build on prior learning of musical notation in year two and broaden their understanding by composing their own patterns and musical notation pieces. Children will also learn to develop a sense of identity, belonging and pride in their own community through consistent coverage of music from around the world which not only broadens our children's awareness of different cultures, composers from the past and different countries traditions, it also provides our children with the opportunity to deepen their knowledge and understanding of music history.