Music Curriculum Intent

At Hale Academy we believe Music embodies one of the highest forms of human creativity and is an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Our high-quality music education will engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, compose, improvise and create their own music. Our music curriculum provides opportunities for all children to play and perform using their voices and playing musical instruments. Every child will have the opportunity to listen to, review and evaluate music whilst developing and extending their knowledge and skills, which will boost their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement as well as developing a love of music to last a lifetime.

Music Curriculum Implementation

At Hale Academy teachers provide inclusive lessons which enable all children to access the musical curriculum in a fun and engaging way, further promoting a love of learning. Teachers deliver music lessons using Charanga’s scheme for the Model Music Curriculum. This follows a differentiated, spiral approach to musical learning which responds to the national requirements for musical education. Within each unit of learning, students revisit existing knowledge and skills and then build upon and extend them incrementally. In this manner, learning is consolidated and augmented, allowing for increasing musical confidence, while constantly being gently challenged to go further. At the centre of each step - each lesson - is a song around which the musical learning is centred. Each lesson is taught in the classroom taking children through exercises in listening, singing, performing, composing, improvising and discussion about the music.

In KS1, the children will begin to recognise a connection between sound and symbol. They will embed an understanding of pulse, rhythm and pitch, laying the foundations for KS2 where they will start to formally read music. At Hale Academy all children will learn how to play a variety of instruments, including glockenspiel and recorders as they progress through the school

As pupils progress they are supported to develop an understanding and acceptance of the validity and importance of all types of music and an unbiased respect for the role that music may play in a person’s life. Music should allow children to reflect and they are supported to think critically to develop an understanding of how music reflects our history and how it contributes and impacts the culture, creativity of our nation as well as within other cultures.

We have weekly singing assemblies, giving children the opportunity to sing as part of a larger ensemble, which covers a wider genre of musical styles.
A member of a local choir visits annually to perform and sing with the children in Year 3 and 4 to encourage children to join choirs in the wider community.

There are opportunities to join after school singing clubs, where the children involved are given an opportunity to expand their life experiences by performing at larger venues.

Children can also purchase lessons to learn instruments with Rocksteady, with a limited number of free allocated spaces for pupil premium children.
Christmas productions give every child an opportunity to perform to their parents as a wider audience.

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 interrelated dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

(National curriculum, March 2021)

Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it. Stevie Wonder

Music Curriculum Impact

Through the use of a differentiated, spiral approach to musical learning the children develop and retain key knowledge and skills.

We aim for all pupils to leave Hale Academy able to:

• Enjoy music as either a listener, creator or performer.
• Have the ability to discuss and share their own thoughts, opinions and ideas about different pieces of music, acknowledging and respecting that these may vary and that this is positive.
• Play and perform using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluence, control and expression.
• Improvise and compose music.
• Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory
• Use and understand staff and other musical notations
• Appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians
• Develop an understanding of the history of music.

Subject Progression Map

Subject progression maps can be found here