At East Hunsbury Primary School, it is our intention that our music curriculum is aspirational, enabling, inclusive and enriching. We intend to teach music so that our pupils enjoy and gain knowledge of how music making and music appreciation can enrich their lives. Our music curriculum is intended to:

• Give children the opportunity to appreciate, perform, understand and compose music from a range of times, traditions, genres and composers.

• Enable children to sing and play musically with increased confidence and control.

• Give all children an opportunity to learn/play a musical instrument.

• Ensure our children develop the technical vocabulary which will help them understand and appreciate music.

• Encourage mental health and wellbeing by bringing the whole school community together through music.

Working in partnership and with our local music hub (Northampton Music and Performing Arts Trust) we intend to create a strong musical culture within our school. Music has the power to foster connections within the brain which will improve memory and coordination. The skills involved in playing and listening to music will also help learners develop the self-esteem, self-discipline, cooperation, creativity, and self-motivation necessary for success. We aim to establish a lifelong passion for music as an art form is that it is accessible to all. It is an art form that is entwined into the fabric of our lives and we aim to enable children to enrich their experience of all types of music.

We want children continue to grow in confidence as they progress through the music curriculum and become passionate in their responses to music alongside becoming more independent learners, reflecting upon their learning and developing resilience within the musical world.

Music lessons are taught throughout the school by specialist teachers from Northampton Music and Performing Arts Trust. We have developed an enduring and longstanding relationship with NMPAT as we believe that specialist teaching ensures all pupils access high quality teaching from staff who are confident and passionate practitioners. This allows pupils to access a wide range of music from across all genres and time periods.

Our music curriculum has been intentionally designed to ensure children develop substantive knowledge alongside disciplinary knowledge as they learn the fundamental elements of what it is to be a musician - it will engage, inspire and challenge children, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own improvisations and compositions, and have the confidence to perform them as they learn how to be a musician. Children will also develop their knowledge of the music theory that underpins their practical work and have the opportunity to appreciate, evaluate and engage critically with a wide variety of music, listening with concentration and detail and expressing their preferences.

The following high dividend concepts have been identified as part of our music curriculum: pitch, duration, tempo, dynamics, timbre, texture, structure and notation. These form the ‘Big Ideas’ through which performance, improvisation and composition are taught. Children will also refer to these concepts when listening to and appraising music from across the musical canon.

The impact of our music curriculum is measured through:

• Pupil voice/discussion and how they can talk about and appreciate a range of music

• Observations of pupil performances including singing and school productions.

• Evaluating compositions.

• Achieving awards and quality marks such as: Music Mark (which we have achieved for the past 3 academic years) to bench mark our provision and outcomes against

Assessments will show a development of vocabulary, musical knowledge (substantive and disciplinary) and application of skill. 

The specialist NMPAT teachers also undertake assessments during lessons and liaise closely with class teachers on pupil performance, outcomes and attainment. Teachers use a flexible three-tier termly assessment tool based on the Model Music Curriculum Minimum Expected Standards to track progress and they also provide information for our Parents’ Evenings and Annual Reports.

Music lessons are taught for at least an hour every week by a specialist music teacher. As a school, we have adopted NMPAT’s music curriculum (based on The Model Music Curriculum) which is logically sequenced with clear progression of substantive and disciplinary knowledge. It has been written by specialists, encompasses our ethos for high quality music teaching and has clear end points with content logically chunked over time which builds towards these outcomes.

The units taught involve:

• Singing, playing and performing

• Learning to play a range of instruments

• Listening, appraising and musicianship

• Learning ways to show musical notation

• Reading musical notation

• Improvising and creating their own compositions

A love and learning of music start in the Early Years where, through Communication and Language, Expressive Arts and Design and Personal development, children will:

• Sing a wide range of nursery rhymes and songs (this is also mapped out in our writing curriculum and part of our oracy)
• Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others and try to move in time to music.
• Combine different movements with fluency (EYFS children are also allocated a performance poem in line with the rest of the school in the Spring term)
• Listen carefully to songs and rhymes, paying attention to how they sound.
• Explore, use and refine a variety of artistic effects to express their ideas and feelings

Children in the Early Years also have a music lesson taught by a specialist teacher once a week.

Our curriculum has been sequenced to allow children to make clear and consistent progress in music. Building on from the Early Years, the children in Key Stage 1 will 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.

During Key Stage 2, children will be taught to sign and play musically with increasing confidence and control and will develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.  They will listen with increasing attention to detail; 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; play musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression and compose music for a range of purposes.

Children in Year 4 currently take part in the NMPAT First Access Music Project in which all children learn to play a musical instrument. In this project, children experience live performances and perform to others. They are given opportunities to continue with their tuition after the project has ended through small group or individual lessons.

In addition to the curriculum music teaching, in Key Stage 2, children are offered the opportunity to study a musical instrument with peripatetic teachers. We currently offer violin, keyboard, guitar and woodwind lessons. Children are encouraged to perform and show their progress to their peers during class and school assemblies. All instrument learners are also given the chance to showcase their talents and progress to their parents at our end of year Music Gala.

We have a school choir comprising of children in Years 4, 5 and 6 (including the SU) who take part in many performances in the community and the wider area. Performances include singing to residents at local care homes, local library events, singing at special school events (Christmas fair and open evenings), performing at the local Derngate Theatre and at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham.

Our children in Key Stage 1 have to opportunity to continue their early musical journey by taking part in our after-school musicianship club. Here they can continue to develop skills and knowledge relating to the elements of music, including an introduction to reading and writing simple musical notation, through singing, movement and playing instruments.

During the school year, children have the opportunity during the year to see live musical performances from visiting music practitioners from the NMPAT Music Hub. Children and teachers take part in assemblies/workshops from musical professionals such as Word Guerrilla, The Beat Goes On, iRock and Rock Kidz.

Singing and music performance play a pivotal role in our termly year group assemblies. The children perform to high quality songs taught by their class teachers or pieces learnt in their music lessons.

The children take part in weekly Sing and Sign Assemblies. Songs are chosen by the music lead to link with special calendar events or are specifically chosen to link with our whole school values of Be Kind, Work Hard and Believe. During assemblies, children have opportunities to listen to music from different composers, genres and times and sing age-appropriate popular songs.

The British Values of Democracy, Rule of Law, Individual Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance are actively promoted at East Hunsbury Primary and are threaded throughout the music curriculum to provide opportunities for children’s further understanding.

Individual Liberty: Children show a sense of enjoyment and fascination in learning about themselves, others and the world around them. They show imagination and creativity in their learning.

Mutual Respect: Through listening and discussing music and the creative processes behind it, we often identify differences in opinions and feelings. Children can appreciate the differences in their own musical tastes, their classmates and the wider world.

Democracy: Children make decisions together in teams to create and perform music. They make sure that everyone’s thoughts, suggestions and ideas are considered.

Tolerance of different faiths and beliefs: By studying a variety of music from different countries and cultures, children understand that we all share the same beliefs and values. They also understand the importance of values and ideas when working together in ensemble groups and learn to listen to others’ opinions when rehearsing for group performances.

The rule of law: Children appreciate that the musical instruments that we use are cared for and not damaged. They understand that the rules for their use prepare us for using equipment in the world of work.

The protected characteristics are actively promoted throughout our curriculum to ensure that pupils have an age-appropriate knowledge and understanding of the nine protected characteristics. Our curriculum, including music, ensures that, as a school, we:

• Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act 2010.

• Provide equality for all.

• Foster good relations between persons

Our music curriculum is inclusive by design and enables each child access to the learning through quality first teaching. Support for disadvantaged pupils, and those with SEND, is individualised, based on careful consideration of the children’s needs, and ensures everyone has what they need to succeed and secure the knowledge and skills associated with our music curriculum.

Our Specialist Unit take part in regular music lessons as part of their curriculum and participate in mainstream lessons, where appropriate. With the support of the SU staff, the use of Makaton signing is encouraged when singing. Mainstream children enjoy using the Makaton signs alongside their SU peers but it also enables them to learn new signs as well as help them to communicate. Some children with specific SEND needs in the mainstream and children in the specialist unit also access additional music therapy sessions with an NMPAT specialist SEND music teacher.

As a school, we encourage children in receipt of the pupil premium grant and their families to engage in musical opportunities and instrument tuition. We provide additional support through resources to enhance accessibility and staff scaffold work to meet the needs of all students. Children can actively learn and engage with music from a range of cultures and tradition in all key stages and provisions.

At East Hunsbury, we provide opportunities to deepen the learning of our children beyond the music curriculum by linking with our education teams.  Naturally, music supports the ‘Enrichment’ team with the range of extra-curricular opportunities available to our children beyond the music curriculum. Working with our ‘Careers and Aspirations’ Team, children can see the potential opportunities and experiences available to them within music.

Pupils in Year 5 get to work with a professional composer to use music technology to compose and produce their own song as part of our annual Trust RSC programme.  All children develop singing skills and their enjoyment of, and enthusiasm for, singing through weekly focused singing sessions, sing and sign assemblies and experience live musical performances from NMPAT visiting recital groups.

Throughout KS2, children are offered the opportunity to learn musical instruments in peripatetic instrumental lessons.