EYFS Early Learning Goals

Pupils should be taught to:

• Sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs.
• Perform songs and rhymes with others and move in time with music.

Key Stage 1

Pupils should be taught to:

• Use their voices expressively and creatively by singing 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.
• Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music. (Pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.)

Key Stage 2

(How we prepare children for their learning in this key stage)

Pupils should 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.
• Pupils should be taught to:
• 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 inter-related 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.

Intent

The intention of music at Palfrey Infant School is first and foremost to help children feel that they are musical and to develop a life-long love of music. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers and listeners. The music curriculum at Palfrey Infant School introduces children to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities. Children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, developing improvising skills and begin composing music, listening and responding to music, learning about the elements of music, beginning with finding the pulse or beat of the music in fun and creative ways. Children will then build on these skills throughout their time at Palfrey Infant School, looking at pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations. They will develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music that they listen to and learn how music can be written down. Through music, our curriculum helps children develop transferable skills such as team-working, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and presentation and performance skills. These skills are vital to children’s development as learners and have a wider application in their general lives outside and beyond school. The scheme of work, Rockit!, enables pupils to meet the end of Early Years Early Learning Goals for music statements in EAD and Key Stage 1 attainment targets outlined in the EYFS Profile and National Curriculum. They will learn about the elements of music beginning with finding the pulse of the music in fun and creative ways, building onto thinking about rhythm and pitch and learning that music is structured, learning the technical vocabulary for all the elements as they progress.

Implementation

The implementation of the curriculum relates to how the learning is going to be delivered across the year groups at Palfrey Infant School, taking the intent of the learning and translating it into a progressive and effective curriculum. At Palfrey Infant School our music curriculum is delivered through the support of the Rockit! scheme of work. It has a holistic approach to music, in which the individual strands are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences. Those individual strands include performing, listening, composing, the history of music and the inter-related dimensions of music. Each unit combines these strands within the cross-curricular topics designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Through this scheme, children will learn to recognise and name the inter-related dimensions of music – pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture and dynamics – and use these expressively in their own improvisations and compositions. Lessons allow children in Key Stage 1 to develop their expertise in using a tuned instrument (glockenspiel). The knowledge map shows the progression of skills and knowledge shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how those skills develop year-on-year to ensure attainment targets are securely met by the end of the key stage. Rockit! follows a spiral curriculum model where previous skills and knowledge are returned to and built upon. Children progress in terms of tackling more complex tasks and doing more simple tasks better, as well as developing an understanding and knowledge of the history of music and the interrelated dimensions of music. In each lesson, pupils will actively participate in musical activities drawn from a range of styles and traditions, developing their musical skills and their understanding of how music works. Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work, as well as improvisation and teacher-led performances. Lessons are ‘hands-on’ and incorporate movement and dance elements, as well as making cross-curricular links with other areas of learning. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Music is taught by experienced music teachers using a variety of untuned percussion and some tuned percussion including glockenspiels. We have a variety of live music that comes in to perform to the children and we invite the parents in to come and watch performances of their children.

Impact

The impact of teaching music at Palfrey Infant School relates to how staff identify that the curriculum is having a positive impact on pupils’ learning, how to identify gaps in their learning and how to fill these. Teaching music with the support of Rockit! will see an increase in the love of music across the school. Lessons are planned with detail to support all levels of subject knowledge. Knowledge organisers provide staff with a highly visual record of the key learning from each unit, encouraging recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary. Pupils should leave Palfrey Infant School equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in KS2 and to be able to enjoy music throughout their lives. The expected impact of following the Rockit! scheme of work is that children will:

• Be confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically.
• Show an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and will understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social and historical contexts.
• Begin to understand some of the ways in which music can be written down to support performing and composing activities.
• Demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and be able to identify their own personal musical preferences.
• Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the EYFS profile and National Curriculum for music.