Music

At Oulton First School, our music curriculum intends to inspire creativity, self-expression as well as giving them opportunities to connect to others. We hope to foster a lifelong love of music by exposing our children to diverse musical experiences and igniting a passion for music. By listening and responding to different musical styles, finding their voices as singers, performers and as composers, they will become confident, reflective musicians.

‘Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity’ (The National Curriculum)

Skills

By the end of their time at Oulton, the aim of our music curriculum is to develop pupils who:

• Can sing and use their voices individually and in a group

• Create and compose music on their own and with others

• Have opportunities to learn musical instruments

• Enjoy, listen to, review and evaluate the work of great composers and musicians from a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions

• Use and understand musical language and include musical features in their own work

• Make judgements about the quality of music

• Have different opportunities to take part in performances

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in music, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. The school follows the Charanga scheme of learning and LKS2 have an external music teacher from Entrust. The breadth and depth of each of the four curriculum areas is mapped out to show the expected progression through the milestones (KS1, LKS2). Lessons are planned with reference to the relevant concepts. These concepts will be repeated, revisited and applied to a variety of different musical situations when addressing the breadth of the curriculum, to develop greater depth of learning.

Whilst in school, children have opportunities to forge their own musical journey, 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 an awareness of others and self-reflection. Music develops an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to children individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world. Children are able to enjoy music and comprehend its parts. They can sing, feel a pulse, add rhythms and create melodies in a group. They can further develop these skills in the future and continue to enjoy and embrace music in their lives.