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Music at North Wootton Academy

Intent

First and foremost, we aim to develop a love of music both in respect to its appreciation and its creation. 

In supporting this, we aim to ensure that pupils develop a competence, from EYFS through to Year 6, in reading musical notation and using this whilst developing and exploring risk taking and creativity surrounding key instruments, with each phase focusing on a particular instrument: 

  • EYFS – Notation Puppets 

  • Key Stage 1 – Ocarina 

  • Lower Key Stage 2 – Recorder 

  • Upper Key Stage 2 – Ukulele 

We aim to ensure that pupils have sufficient understanding and language of the dimension of music (tempo, timbre, pitch etc) and can use these to discuss and appreciate a range of outstanding musical pieces throughout history, through use of our schools Speaking and Listening policy. 

We are committed to ensuring children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community and British culture (and those around the world) and are able to use their musical skills, knowledge and experiences to involve themselves in music within a variety of different contexts. 

These skills are in addition to the development of the children’s voice as an instrument and retaining a core knowledge of traditional songs from UK culture. 

Implementation

All pupils are completing music lessons taught in blocks of multiple lessons within each half term. It is expected that the children would participate in weekly singing assemblies and key pieces of music and songs are being learnt throughout the teaching week. 

The planned curriculum places great emphasis on the progressive teaching of musical notation, musical terminology and the ability to apply this in the learning and creation of musical pieces. It also has placed considerable thought on the providing a wide knowledge of genres, key songs and key musicians who have been central to both history and cultures from around the world, and provides the opportunity to reflect and discusses their opinions of these. Moreover, these have often been linked to other areas of the curriculum in order to cement the connection between music and human development itself. All of these aspects ensure that the curriculum has been planned to ensure that pupils know and remember more about music year upon year. 

To ensure that teachers have sufficient subject knowledge, the school uses a newly written scheme, Charanga Music and Rubrics created by the subject leaders, providing class teachers with the subject specific knowledge of how to assess. The school also typically tries to ensure that the subject is taught by key members of staff who can specialise within the subject, during the pandemic this was predominantly done by the class teacher with the supervision of the subject leader where necessary. However, now the restrictions have been removed, the school has returned to rotation where the specialised teacher delivers the content. 

Impact

Whilst in school, children have access to a varied program which allows them to discover areas of strength, as well as areas they might like to improve upon. The integral nature of music and the learner creates an enormously rich palette from which a child may access fundamental abilities such as: achievement, self-confidence, interaction with and awareness of others and self-reflection. 

Key Performance Indicators, recall quizzes, video evidence and subject leader provided Rubrics are used to track the development and knowledge of our pupil’s musical ability with video evidence recorded within e-portfolios in order to evidence level of ability being developed.  

These key assessment points will be reviewed each academic year as the school moves towards focusing upon key instruments. 

Curriculum Overview

Music Overview - Reception to Y6

Key Progression

Whole School Music Skill Progression

Policy

Music Policy 2023

Music Whole Map