Intent

At Lynsted, our music curriculum is first and foremost to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need to be confident listeners, composers and performers. Our curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world, across generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities.

Children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, improvising and composing, and listening and responding to music. They will develop an understanding of history and cultural context of music that they will listen to and learn how music can be written down. Through music, our curriculum helps children develop transferable skills such as team-working, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision making, and presentation and performing skills.

Implementation 

Our curriculum takes a holistic approach to music, in which the individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences:

• Performing
• Listening
• Composing
• The history of music
• The inter-related dimensions of music

Units of learning combine these strands within a cross-curricular topic designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Over the course of the music curriculum, children will be taught how to sing fluently and expressively, and play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control. They will learn to recognise and name the interrelated dimensions of music - pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture and dynamics - and use these expressively in their own improvisations and compositions.

In each lesson, pupils will actively participate in musical activities drawn from a range of styles and traditions, developing their musical skills and their understanding of how music works. The curriculum follows the spiral Vygotsky model where previous skills and knowledge are returned to and built upon. Children progress in terms of tackling more complex tasks and doing more simple tasks better, as well as developing understanding and knowledge of the history of music, staff, and other musical notations, as well as the interrelated dimensions of music and more. 2

Impact

After the implementations, pupils should leave primary school equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and to be able to enjoy and appreciate music throughout their lives. The expected impact of following this curriculum is that children will:

• Be confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school.
• Show an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and will understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social, and historical contexts in which it is developed.
• Understand the ways in which music can be written down to support performing and composing activities.
• Demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and be able to identify their own personal musical preferences.
• Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the national curriculum for Music.

Scheme 

We use KAPOW to support our planning and ensures we achieve the aims set out in the National Curriculum.

Assessment

At Lynsted, music is not formally assessed, but the Kapow scheme does provide for informal assessment for each topic area covered in music, by providing a simple quiz covering the musical areas that have been covered in each topic. This allows teachers to ensure that all children are continuing to access the curriculum. The teacher simply hands out the forms to the children and then the pupils can self-assess using the presentation that the teacher controls.

At the end of each unit, the children’s musical pieces are also recorded, and then the teacher shows them back their work in the final week, allowing for informal constructive criticism and self-assessment by the pupil, allowing them to progress. Music is also informally assessed through the development of singing and the testing of musical knowledge during the weekly singing assemblies.

Inclusion

The Kapow curriculum is accessible in a number of ways:

• Within each unit and lesson, there are adaptive teaching suggestions to allow non-specialist teachers to make adjustments.

• There are customisable colour schemes within lesson presentations

• There are knowledge organisers available to pre-teach or recap key language and ideas.

• There are varied teaching methods to engage different learning styles and needs.

SMSC and Cultural Capital

The Kapow Music curriculum contributes to the Spiritual development of pupils by:

• Inspiring them to be creative and imaginative when composing.

• Encouraging them to enjoy and respond to different genres and styles of music.

• Giving them opportunities to discuss emotions evoked by music.

The Kapow Music curriculum contributes to the Moral development of pupils by providing opportunities to further explore moral issues surrounding different music styles (WW2, slave plantations, rock and roll), if this is appropriate, and chances to understand how viewpoints on these issues have changed over time.

The Kapow Music curriculum contributes to the Social development of pupils by:

• Giving them opportunities to collaborate with a group towards a shared outcome.

• Enabling them to make decisions as a group, dealing with conflict when it arises.

• Supporting children to give constructive feedback to their peers, considering the feelings of others when doing so.

• Offering them regular opportunities to perform in class and in front of an audience. The Kapow Music curriculum contributes to the Cultural development of pupils by:

• Broadening their awareness of cultural diversity by introducing them to music from around the world.

• Allowing them to understand more about the importance of music in their own and others’ heritage.

• Helping them to see that music plays an important role in many cultures around the world.

• Fostering respect for music associated with different cultures and the diversity of this music.