Intent:

Music connects and inspires us. It speaks to our emotions and our imaginations. Whoever you are, wherever you’re from, music is a universal language that speaks to us all.
At Hindley J and I, our intention is to inspire a lifelong passion for music and develop musical skills which will build our pupils’ self-esteem and self-discipline leading to a real sense of achievement and higher standards across the whole curriculum. Through experiencing a wide variety of musical opportunities, we will enable our children to become confident and competent musicians who love listening and responding to music, enjoy singing as a community and take pleasure in performing.

The aims of our Music curriculum are to develop pupils who:

• Can sing and use their voices individually or in a group
• Can sing in unison or in parts
• Create and compose music on their own and with others
• Use technology appropriately when composing
• Have opportunities to learn a musical instrument either as a whole class or by individual lessons.
• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated
• Listen to and appraise the work of great composers and musicians from a broad range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions
• Listen and respond to live performances by professional musicians
• Enjoy and have an appreciation of a range of different musical styles e.g. Rock, Pop, Motown, Gospel, Classical, Jazz, Baroque etc.
• Use and understand the correct musical terminology and include these musical features in their own work
• Make judgements about the quality of music
• Have opportunities to play a wide variety of instruments
• Have different opportunities to take part in performances

Implementation:

Through the Charanga Musical School programme, our children develop their understanding of music by making musical judgements, developing their aural memory, expressing themselves physically, emotionally and through discussion and creating their own musical ideas. They become familiar with and immersed in the particular genre of music being studied through repetition, listening, contrasting, improvising and composing. This takes place not only in lessons, but listening to themed music at lunchtimes.
Activities and games taught within lessons cover the musical dimensions of pulse, rhythm, pitch etc. through singing and playing instruments, listening and creating music – all of which are linked through a central song or piece.
Through questioning, the children are encouraged to consider and mimic the sounds they hear, identify instruments or voices used, and use musical language to describe the style, how is the piece structured and so on.
Singing is an integral part of our music curriculum and is embedded through whole school singing assemblies and the opportunity to join the school choir in Key Stage 2.  All pupils have access to both untuned percussion and tuned musical instruments (glockenspiels) and currently learn to play the ukulele as a class in Year 3.
Improvisation and composition for voices and instruments forms part of each unit of work. Improvisation, for voice and instruments is introduced through copy-back and question and answer games, using ideas and concepts that the children are familiar with. Through composition, children explore the understanding of notation beginning with letter names or graphic representations leading on to simple notation as their understanding develops.
Pupils are encouraged to improve and refine vocal and instrumental techniques and draw together all their musical skills through performance.