Intent

At Wanstead Church School, our Music curriculum is designed to inspire children’s musical talents and to nurture an interest in music.

We develop Wisdom, Compassion and Strength in our Music curriculum:

Wisdom: Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. Through our Music curriculum, our children develop a critical engagement with music, which allows them to compose and listen to a variety of music with discrimination. Our children learn to perform, listen, review, evaluate, sing, create and compose. They experience the works of great composers and musicians and learn to play at least one musical instrument before they leave Wanstead Church School.

Compassion: Our Music curriculum allows for music to play an important part in helping children to feel part of a community. Children are encouraged to have an appreciation for a wide range of music and respectfully share their opinions with others. The Music curriculum exposes children to the history, culture and traditions that underpin great pieces of music and through this the children learn to truly love music.

Strength:  Our Music curriculum provides opportunities for children to perform, to confidently express their emotions and to showcase their understanding of how to perform with awareness of others. Our children are given the opportunity to and are guided through the process of acquiring the skills needed to play both tuned and un-tuned musical instruments.

Implementation

At Wanstead Church School, music teaching provides our children with an understanding and appreciation for music, by studying a wide range of musical styles and genres from a range of musical periods.

Teachers tailor the Charanga units to fit around key stage performances and use the ‘freestyle’ element of the package to provide thematic, cross curricular lessons that follow children’s interests. Music lessons are broken down into half-termly units and an emphasis is placed on musical vocabulary, allowing children to talk about pieces of music using the correct terminology.

Each unit of work has an on-going musical learning focus and lessons usually follow a specific learning sequence:

• Listen and Appraise
• Musical Activities (including pulse and rhythm)
• Singing and Voice
• Playing instruments
• Improvisation / Composition
• Perform and Share

Music teaching at Wanstead Church School is practical and engaging. A variety of teaching approaches and activities are provided based on teacher judgement and child ability. Lessons typically involve a combination of the following: games, songs, challenges, listening to music and discussing music, playing a range of musical instruments, performing back, finding the pulse and composing music using notation sheets or technology. Our mastery curriculum provides further enrichment opportunities throughout the year (see below) for children who show extensive aptitude in music.

In Year 3, our children begin learning a musical instrument, e.g. cornet, violin, and they continue to master this instrument throughout KS2.

Performance is at the heart of musical teaching and learning at Wanstead Church School and all children participate in an annual performance for parents. Children also take part in religious assemblies, singing assemblies and children from Reception to Year 6 perform at our Eucharist celebrations. Children who feel ready are also encouraged to perform in solo performances. Parents are invited and welcomed to watch all of these performances whether at school or outside of school.

Alongside our curriculum provision for music, children also have the opportunity to participate in additional 1:1 music instrument lessons with peripatetic teachers from Redbridge Music Services. Instruments include: guitar, piano, keyboard, saxophone, violin and drums. Children that learn a musical instrument have the opportunity to sit examinations and perform at our carol concert and assemblies, as well as our annual music concert.

Children from Year 4 upwards have the opportunity to join the school choir. Children in the school choir meet before school and focus on team work, singing in unison, developing harmony, solo performances and having fun! The school choir has regular opportunities to perform in school performances, carol concerts, singing assemblies and community events.

Impact

Our music Curriculum is high quality and is planned to demonstrate progression that builds upon and embeds current skills. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills in the different musical components and, like in other subjects, discreet teaching of vocabulary also forms part of the units of work.

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Child discussions and interviewing the children about their learning (child voice).
• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes.
• Close links and discussions with Forest School music department.