Music
Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. At Riverside
we provide a high quality music education which engages and inspires pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.
Music is an essential part of the curriculum and an integral part of our culture. We ensure that we match the skills and aptitudes of all our pupils so that they can develop an understanding of melody, harmony and composition within the creative process that is ‘music’.
The national curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:
Perform, listen, review and evaluate music across a range of historic periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians.
Learn to sing and 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 notions.
At Riverside Primary School, the music curriculum is delivered in a cross-curricular way in EYFS. In Year One and Two children are taught by class teachers within their own learning environments.
From Year 3 onwards, a specialist Music Teacher teaches a Music lesson of 30 minutes, once a week. We have a well resourced Music Room, equipped with a variety of instruments, from where the Music lesson is taught. We aim to provide a broad and balanced music curriculum accessible by all children regardless of ability. The new National Curriculum, statutory from September, 2014, has emphasis on the teaching of traditional musical theory in a expressive and dynamic style as well as the continued teaching of listening, reviewing, composing and evaluation of music.
We cover all of the National Curriculum requirements for music including the teaching of whole class instruments such as ukulele, keyboard and recorder. The focus of the lesson is to ensure participation for all in a fun, hands on, practical music lesson. Singing, Playing, Listening and Composing are the four key target objectives for each music lesson taught. This gives all children the best possible musical experience during their primary school career.
Extra curricular activities, such as the School Band (Covid dependant), are also in place for those children who would like to further expand their musical knowledge and standard. A teaching resource named ‘Charanga’ is used to ensure children gain the appropriate technical skills to play their instrument along with developing the skills of reading traditional staff notation as well as appropriate graphic notations.
Early Years Foundation Stage
Within the Foundation Stage (Nursery and Reception), the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework is followed. The ‘Music’ aspect of the curriculum is followed through the area 'Expressive Arts and Design'.
Music teaching is taught as discrete units of work and also, where appropriate, links are made to the overall topics or themes of the half term. During EYFS, children learn to:
Create his/her own songs, or improvise a song around one he/she knows
Play instruments with increasing control to express his/her feelings and ideas
Listen attentively, move to and talk about music, expressing his/her feelings and responses
Sing in a group or on his/her own, increasingly matching the pitch and following the melody
Explore and engage in music making and dance, performing solo or in groups
Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others, and - when appropriate - tries to move in time with music (ELG)
Sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs (ELG)
Key Stage 1 Pupils will be taught to:
Use their voices expressively and creatively by signing 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.
Key Stage 2 Pupils will 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.
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 interrelated 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.