Music at St John's

Our school aims to provide a broad and balanced music curriculum that encourages the children to develop their creative and expressive abilities. We know Music plays an important part in all our lives, the children spend a minimum of 50 minutes per week enjoying music and have a music singing assembly once a week. Children take part in performances at the Southbank Centre each year. The emphasis is on practical experiences through singing, playing, composing and listening. All these activities give pupils the opportunity to work individually, in pairs, in groups and as a class.

Our Intent for Music

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. At St John's, we believe that a high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.

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 inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

Here is a list of the aims of what all children take part in in music lessons:

Enjoy a wide range of music and make music themselves
Increase use of their imagination and creativity
Express themselves and develop emotionally
Understand alternative forms of communication
Concentrate and become more self-disciplined
Develop their ability to listen with intent
Develop practical skills
To work collaboratively with other children to make music together
To gain the experience of expressing themselves both individually and corporately and to gain satisfaction from doing so
To be and understand what being an audience member is and does
Develop an awareness of musical traditions and developments in a variety of cultures and Societies

How we Implement our Music Curriculum

The areas of Music that will be taught in each phase/year group
Music will be taught in line with the National Curriculum 2014. The relevant EYFS, KS1 and KS2 Programmes of Study will be covered by each year group. These are:

The Early Years Foundation Stage
We teach music in reception classes as an integral part of the topic work covered during the year. As the reception class is part of the Early Years Foundation Stage of the National Curriculum, we relate the musical aspects of the children’s work to the objectives set out in the Early Learning Goals (ELGs) which underpin the curriculum planning for children aged three to five. Music contributes to a child’s personal and social development. Counting songs foster a child’s mathematical ability, and songs from different cultures increase a child’s knowledge and understanding of the world. Playing instruments develop their gross motor skills and help with social interaction, taking turns, listening and participating.

KS1 Use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes

Play tuned and untuned instruments musically
Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music
Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the interrelated dimensions of music
Learn Solfa hand signs to distinguish pitches
Sing and play on percussive instruments together as an ensemble
To hear and recognise instruments and the families they belong to
To lead and conduct a class, both through a prepared musical piece and a piece of music they are improvising
To sight read rhythmic notation

KS2 Play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments
with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression

Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the interrelated dimensions of 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 live and recorded music drawn from
different traditions and from great composers and musicians
Develop an understanding of the history of music
Play, perform as a wind band within the lessons, these will involve solos and playing as an ensemble, they will learn to follow a conductor and will themselves learn to conduct
Children will improvise and compose using the interrelated dimensions of music on the instruments they will be playing all year round showing accuracy, fluency, control and expression
Children will learn music phrases and understand form with both musical and no prompts while playing their instruments
Children will be able to notate music
Children will perform music to a high standard as an ensemble and individually from a range of styles and cultures
Children will be given a background to the music they are playing and listening to

Our Music Curriculum

Click here for our Y1 Music Curriculum

Click here for our Y2 Music Curriculum

Click here for our Y3 Music Curriculum

Click here for our Y4 Music Curriculum

Click here for our Y5 Music Curriculum

Click here for our Y6 Music Curriculum

Skills Progression in Music

Click here for the KS1 Music Skills Progression

Click here for the KS2 Music Skills Progression

Extra-Curricular Music

Small group
We offer the following Ensembles – Choir and Music Workshop.

Support for SEND
All pupils will be given the opportunity to get involved in Music taking into account, ability levels and support required. All lessons and activities will be differentiated carefully to ensure musical engagement, challenge, progress and a sense of achievement by all. We endeavor to meet the needs of all children
including gifted and talented through:

Planning and suitability of task
Support required
Use of appropriate resources
Monitoring children’s progress
Monitoring delivery of curriculum

Music in Our Community

Throughout the school year, parents will be invited into the school to listen to the children perform in class assemblies. This will include end of term assemblies and performances. This helps to develop school links with parents as well as celebrate the musical talents of our children to the wider community. We also provide opportunities for budding musicians to sing and perform for the local community, visiting the local care home, celebrating major Christian festivals in Church and singing to the public at Christmas. Music workshops/educational visits/ inter-school singing festivals are also timetabled throughout the year.

Our Planned Impact

Children who leave St John's in Year 6 will:

· Be ready and equipped to start learning Music at the Secondary level

· Understand pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations

· Have developed a love for music though having the opportunity to learn to play an instrument

· Have had the opportunity to express their creativity on a variety of instruments

· Be aware of major composers and musicians

We will ensure that we achieve this by:

Providing consistent, high-quality Music lessons throughout the year in all year groups.

Assessing pupils accurately against the standards in the Music Programme of study and using this information to plan forward for subsequent lessons.

Music Action Plan

Schools are now required to publish a Music Action Plan to ensure all students have access to high-quality music education. This plan outlines the school's approach to delivering inclusive music programs, including curriculum integration, extracurricular activities, and resource allocation.

You can find our school’s Music Action Plan by clicking the link below:

Music Action Plan