Music Curriculum Statement
At Ellison Primary Academy, it is our intent that we make music an enjoyable and valuable learning experience. We teach through concepts that encourage children to participate in a variety of musical experiences through which we aim to build up the confidence of all children. Our teaching focuses on developing the children’s ability to understand rhythm and follow a beat. Through singing songs, children learn about the structure and organisation of music. We teach them to listen and to appreciate different forms of music. Children develop descriptive language skills in music lessons when learning about how music can represent different feelings, emotions and narratives. We also teach technical vocabulary such as volume, pitch, beat and rhythm and encourage children to discuss music using these terms.
In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in Music, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Music is taught as part of a half-termly or termly topic, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. In Key Stage One, children learn about listening, performing and composing music. In Key Stage Two children build on this by learning how to read music through notation whilst also revisiting and building on their previously acquired skills.
The school uses a variety of teaching and learning styles in Music lessons and we use a concept-based curriculum to ensure our units are planned to include specific content. Our principal aim is to develop the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding in Music.
The impact and measure of our Music curriculum is to ensure that children at Ellison Primary Academy are equipped with musical skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 3 level and for life as an adult in the wider world. Music is a huge part of daily life and should be something the children can relate to and enjoy with a good level of understanding from an early age. Entry and exit tasks allow formative and summative assessment of learning and provide the opportunity for children to show what they know. Exit tasks are often in the form of an extended essay, debatable question or a reasoned response to a stimulus. Children will also be able to demonstrate their understanding through performance or verbal response to music. This ensures that children are able elaborate on all of the knowledge that they have acquired throughout the teaching sequence, whilst also encouraging them to discuss and share their knowledge in places beyond Ellison Primary Academy.