Music

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 interrelated dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations

INTENT

At Leiston Primary school, our music curriculum intent is to inspire children to have a love of music. Our goal is for all pupils to:

•  Have an opportunity to experience and explore different types of instruments from around the world.
• Have an opportunity to perform to an audience, building their confidence and self-esteem, in school and out.
•  Have an understanding of music theory and the inter related dimensions to develop their knowledge.
• Experience listening to a diverse range of music including links with history and social events and developing social justice.

 Promote that hard work and determination is needed to develop an instrument – skills they can later use in their working life.

IMPLEMENTATION

Our school will be using the music scheme Music Express. This is an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to music and is delivered through weekly lessons. The scheme is based on listening and appraising; creating and exploring through musical activities; singing, playing instruments and performing. All musical learning is centered on the Interrelated Dimensions of Music: pulse, rhythm, pitch, tempo, dynamics, timbe, texture, structure and notion. The units of work enable our pupils to understand musical concepts through a repetition-based approach to learning musical concepts through varied activities, consequently enabling a more secure, deeper learning and mastery of musical skills as they progress through each year group. 

 At Leiston Primary School, we understand the value of involvement with music through memorable real-life experiences, which are also linked to other areas of the curriculum. This ensures that music is not treated as an add-on subject but rather one which is valued and embedded within our day-to-day practices. 

 These experiences include: 

•  Weekly whole class (Year 5) instrumental lessons: provided by Suffolk County Music  
•  Musical performances to celebrate our instrumentalist’s achievements, with an invitation extended to families
• Participation in concert hall musical performances with Snape Maltings
•  Engagement with outreach musical projects
•  Musical workshops at local high schools
•  Integration of music within our annual Sports Day, with every house performing a ‘walk-on’ to a chosen piece
•  School performances and productions
• Visits to watch live theatre shows and musical performances

IMPACT

Through our intent, we believe our curriculum will support pupil’s creativity by allowing them to express themselves and build character. We want to develop a self of belonging in the world, by enjoying music others may have too, and promoting the positives it can have on mental health. We want to expose music to those who may not get these opportunities and promote different styles and genres, widening their musical spectrum.  Finally, we want pupils to enjoy music in whatever form they prefer – a listener, performer or creator.

The Big Sing

Every year Britten Pears Arts hosts The Big Sing, where young people from across Suffolk come together to sing songs from the Friday Afternoons repertoire as part of a massed choir. This year, our Year 6 pupils took part. 

However, as with everything else, this year we had to do things a bit differently – instead of singing the songs, we signed them!

As part of The Big Sign, we created a digital signing choir together, and learned how to use British Sign Language to perform, Earth - music by Russell Hepplewhite and words by Michael Rosen.

Our performance was recorded and then edited together to create one big signing choir.

Watch our perfect performance here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft5zeWYsbQA&feature=youtu.be