Music
Music – National Curriculum Aims
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.
Attainment targets
By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study.
Subject content
Key stage 1
Pupils should be taught to:
- 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 inter-related dimensions of music.
Key stage 2
Pupils should be taught to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.
Pupils should be taught to:
- 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 inter-related 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.
Intent
The Power of Music – Music is all around us. It is the soundtrack to our lives. Music connects us through people and places in our ever-changing world. It is creative, collaborative, celebratory and challenging. In our schools, music can bring communities together through the shared endeavour of whole-school singing, ensemble playing, experimenting with the creative process and, through the love of listening to friends and fellow pupils, performing. The sheer joy of music-making can feed the soul of a school community, enriching each student while strengthening the shared bonds of support and trust which make a great school.
(Department for Education, Model Music Curriculum)
At Coleridge, our vision is for children to become independent, confident, successful and life-long learners with high aspirations and the adaptability to make a positive contribution to their community and wider society now and in the future.
Through music, we aim to:
- Inspire creativity, self-expression, and a love of music that lasts a lifetime.
- Develop every child’s musicianship so they can sing, listen, compose and perform with increasing skill and confidence.
- Provide opportunities that foster collaboration, celebration, and belonging, both within school and the wider community.
- Nurture an understanding and appreciation of the diverse musical traditions and cultures that enrich our world.
- Prepare children with experiences that broaden their horizons and equip them for life beyond primary school.
Implementation
Our music curriculum is built around the Model Music Curriculum, delivered through the Charanga scheme, which provides a clear, progressive and spiral approach to musical learning. This ensures children revisit and strengthen prior knowledge while gradually extending their skills in singing, listening, composing and performing.
Key features of implementation at East Dene include:
- Weekly music lessons for all children, ensuring music is a consistent and valued part of school life.
- Spiral curriculum design, where skills and knowledge are revisited and deepened, building confidence and progression year on year.
- Specialist instrumental teaching:
- Year 3 – Whole-class recorder lessons delivered by a specialist from the Rotherham Music Service.
- Year 4 – Whole-class ukulele lessons, building ensemble skills.
- Year 5 – whole-class violin lessons building extend pupils’ Key Stage 2 music skills by building on their prior experience of singing, rhythm work and tuned instruments, introducing staff notation.
- Year 6 – whole-class djembe lessons build on pupils’ prior rhythm, performance and listening skills by deepening their understanding of musical structure, texture and dynamics through percussion.
- Extra-curricular opportunities: Children are encouraged to join the school choir, giving them the chance to collaborate across year groups and perform at internal and external events.
- Community and enrichment opportunities: Pupils take part in One Voice, Big Blast, Rotherham Opera and community singing events, representing the school proudly in the wider community.
- Whole-school music-making: End-of-year whole-school showcases, where every child has the opportunity to perform and celebrate their musical achievements.
- Cross-curricular links: Where appropriate, music is woven into wider curriculum themes to enhance learning and provide real-world relevance.
Impact
The impact of music at Coleridge is seen in the joy, confidence and sense of achievement it brings to our children.
Through our provision, children will:
- Develop musical knowledge and skills across singing, listening, composing, and performing.
- Gain the confidence to perform individually and collectively, in both formal and informal settings.
- Experience the discipline and teamwork of ensemble playing and whole-school music-making.
- Build cultural capital by being exposed to a wide variety of musical styles, genres and traditions.
- Strengthen their sense of identity, community, and belonging through shared musical experiences.
- Leave East Dene with positive memories of performing, collaborating and creating music. Skills that can be built upon in secondary education and beyond.
The term whole-school showcases are key moments in the school calendar, bringing together pupils, staff, and families to celebrate progress and achievement in music. These performances highlight the progression of skills across year groups and give every child the opportunity to perform with pride.
The long-term impact is that children will carry forward the resilience, creativity, and confidence developed through music into all aspects of their lives.
Cultural Capital
At Coleridge, we know that Cultural Capital is essential to improve the life chances of our children by supplying them with essential knowledge and also experiences that they wouldn’t normally be exposed to. One of our main cultural capital drivers is creating global citizens and delivering quality first teaching and these are always evident within our music curriculum.
Our music curriculum is diverse and caters for the many cultures within our school. As a result, this ensures that our children are exposed to a wide variety of music genres and ensures that they can thrive in the modern world. Children are exposed to classical music, rap and jazz; these genres have been selected to broaden children’s minds and develop a love and appreciation of different cultures. As we want to broaden children’s horizons, in Y3 and Y4, Rotherham music service deliver high-quality music lessons where children have the opportunity to learn how to play the ukulele and recorder. The culmination of these lesson’s are three performances per year to the children’s parents. We want to ensure every child has the chance to practice an instrument away from school; therefore, at the end of Y4 we purchase recorders, using our Pupil Premium funding, for each child to give them this valuable opportunity.
We also want to expose our children to music at a performance level and expand their experiences by taking them to events that maybe unfamiliar to them. As part of the HAF programme, we have ensured that 30 of our children attend a musical in London’s West End. We also ensure that children visit the local theatre, whilst also having drama performances delivered in school during term time and in the holidays. The Coleridge choir have several events that they attend throughout the year to provide opportunities to perform in front of live audiences,
At Coleridge we understand the importance of knowledge organisers and how they can support children’s understanding and learning.
They are also an excellent assessment tool which can help identify gaps in learning and inform planning, teaching and intervention. As we have developed our own curriculum, class teachers have also developed knowledge organisers to work alongside our curriculum. Children will be encouraged to refer to knowledge organisers throughout sessions to help support and enhance their learning.
Knowledge organisers can be a valuable tool for both children, staff and parents. Class teachers are the ones who write the knowledge organiser, to set out their expectations of what pupils should learn about a topic – and to clarify their own thinking around what is important.
School leaders, headteachers and subject leaders then may look at a series of knowledge organisers to check for progression and continuity both within and across curriculum subjects and to ensure standards and expectations for learning are being implemented, and if not, what CPD is required.
Pupils will review, revise and quiz themselves using their knowledge organisers. Knowledge organisers are a really clear and easy to understand way for parents to be more aware of what their children are learning and thus to support them.
Some of the benefits of knowledge organisers
- A knowledge organiser makes the teacher think hard about what will be taught.
- Knowledge organisers are an endless source of meaningful homework activities.
- Knowledge organisers are an excellent tool for inclusion.
- Knowledge organisers create opportunities for spaced retrieval practice.
- Ahead of a summative assessment at the end of a topic you can inform pupils that some of the questions will refer to previous learning; pupils can then refer to the knowledge organiser to access and practice those topics.
- Used appropriately, knowledge organisers can increase retention of facts
At Coleridge, we have several non-negiotiables that need to be included in a knowledge organiser, they are:
- Key vocabulary (linked to Progression of language)
- Key places and people
- Useful diagrams (as required for the topic)
- Key dates for a subject like history (e.g. when the two World Wars were)
- Key themes
- Important quotes
- Stem sentences for a subject like Science or Maths
We use knowledge organisers throughout school, however, in EYFS they look different to other phases of school due to the away the curriculum is structure. In EYFS, we use a holistic approach to knowledge organisers and have a topic knowledge organiser, whereas, in KS1 and KS2 our knowledge organisers are subject specific.
If you would like any information about our knowledge organisers then please contact us at enquiries@coleridgeprimary.org
BBC – Bring the Noise – https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/bring-the-noise
Sing up – https://www.singup.org/singupathome
Out of Ark – https://www.outoftheark.co.uk/ootam-at-home/thank-you/
Classic for Kids – https://www.classicsforkids.com/games.html
LSO Performances – https://play.lso.co.uk/performances
All Schools are to produce a summary of how the school will deliver high-quality music provision in curriculum music, co-curricular music and musical experiences, taking into account the key features in the National Musical Plan for Education. Ours can be found here.
