Melodious Music
What We Intend To Do
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.”
– Plato
Music is a unique way of communicating that can inspire and motivate children. It is a vehicle for personal expression, and it can play an important part in the personal development of people. Music reflects the culture and society we live in, and so the teaching and learning of music enables children to better understand the world they live in. Besides being a creative and enjoyable activity, music can also be a highly academic and demanding subject. It also plays an important part in helping children feel part of a community. We provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop the skills, to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms, and to begin to make judgements about the quality of music.
At Sherborne, we make music an enjoyable learning experience. We encourage children to participate in a variety of musical experiences through which we aim to build up confidence and enjoyment in performance. From the Early Years onwards, through singing songs, children learn about the structure and organisation of music. We teach them to listen to and appreciate different forms of music and to recognise a range of instruments and the ways in which sounds can be made by them. As children get older, we expect them to maintain their concentration for longer and to listen to more extended pieces of music. Children develop descriptive skills in music lessons when learning about how music can represent feelings and emotions. We also teach children to make music together, to understand musical notation, and to compose pieces.
How We Teach Music
Children will learn about the history and traditions of music from around the world and learn to appreciate the diversity of music and its cultural roots. They will start to compose music for themselves using both actual and digital instruments and be provided with multiple opportunities for performance and for watching performance of high-quality music.
We have attained the Gloucestershire Music Mark for our school provision.
Children are offered the opportunity to study a musical instrument with peripatetic teachers. These lessons are normally taught to individuals who have chosen to learn one of a variety of instruments. This is in addition to the normal music teaching of the school, but usually takes place during curriculum time. We also take opportunities for whole school instrument learning when possible and encourage the development of music skills through the learning of an instrument and through performances.
We employ the services of Gloucestershire Music to teach ensemble lessons to all classes throughout the year.
We teach music in the Reception Class as an integral part of the topic work covered during the year. As the Reception Class is part of the Early Years Foundation Stage of the National Curriculum, we relate the musical aspects of the children’s work to the objectives set out in the Early Learning Goals, which underpin the curriculum planning for children aged three to five.
There is a dedicated space for music teaching and a separate dedicated space for the storage of instruments. Children are taught to respect and value musical instruments, but also to enjoy playing them. The instruments we have at school for lessons and for leisure play include:
• Percussion – a wide variety of shakers, drums and bells
• Glockenspiels
• Xylophones
• Guitars
• Recorders
Other resources used include: Garageband on ipads and our natural environment.
How We Know Children Are Learning Well
The successful approach to the teaching of Music at Sherborne results in a fun, engaging, high quality Music education. It ensures progress and provides children with knowledge of the inter-related dimensions of music, that they can take with them once they complete their primary education. We provide memorable experiences that encourage children to be curious and creative about musical genres. Children take pride in learning music and are able to discuss their learning confidently
The impact of teaching and learning Music is shown through confident musicians who explore music thoughtfully, listen carefully, practise small steps towards improvement in their technical knowledge and who are creative and show enjoyment of performing and appreciating music.
We recognise and assess how successfully the school's aims are met through every day monitoring carried out by class teachers and teaching assistants. This is done through observation, marking and feedback, discussions with the children and information gleaned from online platforms.
The Music subject leader will monitor standards through lesson observations, pupil conferences and planning audits.
Three times a year (Spring Term, Autumn Term, Summer Half Term), teachers make formal judgements of the children's attainment and progress in Music. This is submitted to the subject leader for review and discussed with the the Headteacher. During this meeting, any support needed is identified and action plans are amended.