Belvidere Primary Music Curriculum
Intent
At Belvidere Primary School, we believe music facilitates the development of personal, social, intellectual, and physical skills. It is a powerful, unique form of communication that can transform the way we think, feel and act. We deliver a music curriculum that is engaging, purposeful and fun, based on the three key musical areas/components: LISTENING, COMPOSING, PERFORMING. Throughout their musical journey, all children will experience a variety of activities to develop their understanding of the INTERRELATED DIMENSIONS of music: TEMPO, TIMBRE, PITCH, DYNAMICS, STRUCTURE, TEXTURE and DURATION. Our overall vision in school is for pupils to share our whole school passion for music and grow in confidence, through the musical opportunities we provide them throughout their primary school life at Belvidere Primary School.
We follow the ‘Sing Up’ Music Scheme throughout school (EYFS Reception to Year 6) with music lessons being delivered by a primary music specialist teacher (from Shropshire Music Service). ‘Sing Up’ Music is designed and written by subject specialists. It sets out the skills, knowledge, and understanding to be gained by all pupils at each stage of learning, including the Early Years Foundation Stage. Through our lessons, each child has access to high-quality, practical, and engaging musical experiences. This allows them to develop the self-confidence, skills, knowledge, and understanding to develop a lifelong love of music, whilst also providing a secure foundation that enables them to take music further should they wish to. The Sing Up units of work meet the requirements of the National Curriculum for Music, the suggested approaches of the Model Music Curriculum, as well as the Statutory Framework for Early Years Foundation Stage and Music Development Matters. They also draw on a broad range of musical traditions, using authentic songs and materials.
As part of our music curriculum we feel it is important for every pupil to learn an instrument whilst being at school and have the opportunity to develop their skills over time. In Year 4, the pupils spend the year learning to play the ukulele and Year 5 children spend a term learning to play the folk whistle. Pupils then have the opportunity to join our school orchestra in the Spring/Summer term on their preferred instrument – allowing more opportunities to play in an ensemble setting. We also offer very popular violin group lessons (delivered by Shropshire Music Service) which are subsidised by the school. These children will also be invited to join the school orchestra to play alongside their peers. We currently are able to offer 1:1 guitar and keyboard lessons (provided by Shropshire Music Service). Please contact Shropshire Music Service if your child is interested in learning a new instrument/would like to play in a Shropshire Music Service run ensemble. https://www.shropshiremusicservice.org.uk/
Implement
- EYFS (Reception), KS1 and KS2 children have a timetabled weekly music lesson with Mrs Sequeira (a specialist primary music teacher from
Shropshire Music Service). Mrs Sequeira’s expertise is invaluable in
providing skilfully taught lessons with lots of expert modelling, together with her ability to adapt/enrich the lessons as appropriate, ensuring that the children make good musical progress within each unit.
- The weekly music lessons take place in a dedicated room where a good range of instruments are available including: a whole class set of ukuleles and folk whistles, together with a wide range of tuned and untuned percussion instruments. Class sets of iPads/laptops are also available to use within the lessons and where additional space is needed e.g. for composition -pupils are able to use the adjacent corridor areas/hall.
- Whole class instrumental lessons are taught by Mrs Sequeira and follow Shropshire Music Service Planning units based on the Music Mark ‘A Common Approach’:
Years 4: Ukulele (complete year)
Year 5: Folk Whistle (1 term)
Years 5 and 6 will revisit playing the ukulele/folk whistle at appropriate points within their units and pupils with have the opportunity to join the school orchestra in the Spring/Summer Terms.
- Performances for parents:
Harvest and Christmas (Autumn Term - whole school at church)
Year 4 ukulele concert (Autumn Term) & ‘Ukefest’ at Theatre Severn
(Summer Term)
Years 5 and 6 –‘Young Voices’ in Birmingham (Spring Term)
Year 2 concert (Summer Term)
Year 6 concert (Summer Term).
- Performances within school:
During assembly times/within the classroom.
- Music technology (Audacity, Chrome Music Lab and Incredibox)
is used to support/enrich our music curriculum. Also, the children in Years 2 and 3 have additional music technology units taught by the class teacher (as part of the ‘Teach Computing’ scheme).
Year 2 – Creating – Making Music
Year 3 – Programming - Sequencing in Music.
- EYFS children in the Nursery have a weekly music lesson taught by a
member of their staff with additional opportunities to explore/rehearse throughout the week. We are all very excited to welcome the Shropshire
Music Service in to the Nursery later this year to deliver a funded 5 week block of music lessons (as well as a complimentary box of new percussion instruments) for the children and staff to enjoy.
- In addition to the weekly Music lesson, children also learn/rehearse and enjoy singing songs in our weekly whole school ‘Singing Assembly’ and sing these songs in other assemblies throughout the week.
- To extend listening covered in curriculum lessons and ensure that a wide and diverse repertoire is experienced, we plan to introduce ‘Musician of the Month’ during assembly times.
Impact
We are driven by the goal that all children should enjoy their lessons and make good progress over time. Because our lessons are delivered by a specialist primary music teacher (Mrs Sequeira), lessons are skilfully adapted/enriched to ensure that important skills are secure before moving on and good progress is made. Alongside teacher observations, progress is also captured throughout the term by collection of video snapshots and sound bites which are stored centrally in our school’s ‘media drive’. This system is being introduced in September 2024.
Music Curriculum Scheme Of Work Overview
Music Curriculum Skill Mapping