Intent

At St Mary’s we believe that music is a universal language that offers all children the opportunity to thrive. Our engaging and challenging music curriculum develops our children as well-rounded musicians with the confidence and skills to perform and respond creatively through music.

Implementation 

We believe that children learn best through actively participating in music making and aim to make musical sound, and particularly the singing voice, the target language of teaching in all lessons. Our children follow a clear progression in their learning about musical concepts including pitch, duration, timbre, tempo, dynamics, texture and structure. From Year R to Year 6, our curriculum steadily builds in complexity with children deepening their knowledge and growing in independence year on year. Children from year 2 onwards are offered the opportunity to learn an instrument through the rock and pop foundation. Throughout the school, our children participate in regular, high quality performance opportunities, from our harvest festival event to our year 6 leavers ceremony. As well as internal events, the school performs at external opportunities such as Young Voices events as well as the Barnaby Bear concert. We also provide an excellent range of extracurricular music activities including a school choir (Young Voices) and recorder clubs.

Impact

By the time children leave the school, all of our children will have had the opportunity to learn an instrument, to express themselves through singing and to create their own music. They will have participated in meaningful performance opportunities and taken pride in their own developing skills as musicians. Children will have developed a deep understanding of the dimensions of music, and will be able to listen with critical awareness to music from a wide range of genres and cultures.

Curriculum Drivers

Environmental Stewardship

Within different music units, we explore the wonder of animals, nature and our beautiful world. Using sounds and images from the world around us, we reflect on it’s uniqueness and our role in valuing and protecting it.

Global Mindset, Diversity and Inclusion

Using cultures, religious and imagery from around the world, music at St Mary’s is perfectly placed to give a real flavour and appreciation for the global language of music. Our music curriculum has been planned diligently with this in mind. The units of work reflect our diverse communities and our resources give even more depth to this. Music is a subject that creates links and forges relationships and communities.

Play-Based Learning

Music naturally lends itself to experimenting, exploring and playing with skills and instruments. At St Mary’s, we plan carefully so our children have opportunities to have fun with music. This can be individual and have intrinsic reflection but this can also be in pairs, groups and within workshops- the options are endless with music.

Belonging

Everyone enjoys music at St Mary’s. This maybe through carefully chosen hymns, songs and pieces of music in Collective Worship, the performances in Sharing Assemblies or Fetes or through the specialist opportunities we plan in across the year.

Inspiration and Aspiration

Using a range of stimuli, pupils at St Mary’s celebrate music in their lives. Through events in theatres or in school, our children aspire and through Sharing Assemblies, and their own performances inspire others.

Spiritual Development

Within each unit of work, children are given opportunities to use music as a vehicle. This can be to learn more about themselves, about others or about the world around them. Music has the ability to do this and this is very obvious throughout our children’s lived experience but also in all our church services and pivotal moments within our school community.

Communication and Storytelling

Music is a fundamental and in-built method of communication. At St Mary’s we recognise this within formal music lessons but also across the whole curriculum. Within the units we use books, stories and stimuli that embodies this exact aspect of this unique subject. Music is a language all children can enjoy and share and at St Mary’s we value and embrace this across the lived experience of a pupil.