Music at Park
INTENT
At Park, we have designed our music curriculum to:
Meet the requirements of the National Curriculum and Early Years Framework
Be rich in knowledge that is meaningfully connected to what children already know
Build a strong understanding of big ideas such as composition over their time at Park
Develop empathetic citizens of now and the future, equipped and empowered to make a difference in an ever-changing world
Develop great concentration and self-discipline, and co- operation with others through a love of music
IMPLEMENTATION
To achieve these aims, our subject leader has planned what will be taught in each year group and set this out in a long-term plan, as you can see below:
Our music subject leader has carefully selected the key music concepts that we develop through your child’s music curriculum. These concepts are:
singing and performing
playing and composing
listening and appreciating
Units of work have been selected to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum and to progressively return to these ideas, broadening and deepening children’s understanding each time. This is mapped out in documents like this:
Your child’s class teacher plans the history lessons from this document, using resources from Charanga that provide high quality examples of music that match the progression of learning planned by our music subject leader.
We believe that music is hugely important for children - it is something they love, can be a interest they pursue as a hobby and is shown to enhance learning by improving cognitive processes. For this reason, we enhance our music offer to children. We love our weekly whole-school singing assembly and also regularly take part in music events in our local community such as singing carols in a local residential home and going to listen to the Liverpool Philharmonic orchestra. All children in Y4 learn to play the clarinet and we also subsidise musical instrument tuition, including guitar, keyboards and clarinet.
IMPACT
To be sure that our curriculum is working for your child, we regularly check whether they have gained the knowledge set out in our music curriculum. Within lessons, we set up short activities to check what they have understood and remembered. Where children show they have not understood or remembered some key learning, we will make adaptations for them within the lesson and change our planning for future lessons to address this and help them remember more.
At the end of the unit, we check whether children have remembered all of the key learning for the unit. We make a summary judgement as to whether they have met Park’s expectations and learned what we expect them to. We will inform you of your child’s music attainment in their end of year report as well as regular chances to see and hear what they have learned in school throughout the year. We will also let their next teacher know, so that they can plan to meet your child’s needs in the next class.
Our music subject leader and senior leadership team regularly review the assessments made in music and visit their lessons to check whether our curriculum is working to help your child master key music understanding. We use this to reflect on what has been taught, how it has been taught and make further improvements to our curriculum.