Music

Intent

At The Schools of Woolton Hill, our aim is to deliver high-quality music teaching that will enable all children to enjoy and succeed whatever their musical starting point. Our aim is to inspire and excite children by learning through practical musical experiences and exploring a variety of musical genres. We seek to provide children with opportunities to share and develop their music abilities through peripatetic music lessons, playing in assemblies, singing and playing instruments in our annual Nativity, Lower School and Upper School performances.

Our musical curriculum enables pupils to think critically about the music that they are exposed to and to develop an awareness of the music’s emotional impact on them, developing emotional literacy, enquiring minds and instilling in children a love of music. We aim for children to enjoy music and for it to help them grow up as kind, curious, and open-minded young people, who are sensitive and knowledgeable about music and the arts.

We aim for children’s musical skills to be developed through regular exposure to music in lessons, through listening to music and singing in assemblies and acts of worship, through responding to music during dance and gymnastics.

Implementation

We use the “Charanga” scheme to support our music teaching. It is designed to provide a high quality musical education for every child. Our music curriculum is planned and delivered across our school to enable clear progression in skills and knowledge.

The Schools of Woolton Hill long term map sets out the music topics which are taught throughout the year and ensures that the requirements of the National Curriculum are fully met. Musical topics are linked to other subjects where meaningful.

Each topic in our music scheme has a skills progression document which enables teachers to pitch learning at the right level and also support through scaffolding and extend where needed.

Impact

Formative assessment in music takes place during each lesson. Oral feedback is provided to children, related to the learning objective or skill being taught that lesson. Time is dedicated to supporting all children to achieve the skills being taught.

The teaching of music is monitored regularly, through planning monitoring and learning walks. This information is used to identify strengths and areas for development of the subject, driving the subject forward.

Our children enjoy the broad and balanced range of activities and musical genres covered and enjoy seeing their progress and development.