If you have any questions regarding the curriculum we teach, please contact the school office directly and the office staff will pass your enquiry on to the relevant Curriculum Leader.

Charanga

In line with the Model Music Curriculum, Charanga adopts an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning. The interrelated dimensions of music weave through the units to encourage the development of musical skills as the learning progresses through listening and appraising, differing musical activities (including creating and exploring) and performing.

Charanga enables children to understand musical concepts through a repetition-based approach to learning. Learning about the same musical concept through different musical activities enables a more secure, deeper learning and mastery of musical skills.

The strands of musical learning are part of the learning spiral. Over time, children can both develop new musical skills and concepts, and re-visit established musical skills and concepts. 

Learning Progression

The diagram above shows the depth of learning that occurs as the children move through the year groups. As they progress, the colour deepens and the learning widens.

Interrelated Dimensions

All musical learning in this scheme is built around the Interrelated Dimensions of Music: pulse, rhythm, pitch, tempo, dynamics, timbre, texture, structure and notation. These dimensions are at the centre of all the learning.

“Music is powerful. As people listen to it, they can be affected. They respond.” – Ray Charles

Intent

At St Michael’s Church of England Primary School, we believe that music embodies one of the highest forms of creativity, and we want the curriculum to engage and inspire our pupils to develop a lifelong love of music as well as to enable them to be confident musicians. It is a practical subject, which, as well as being creative and enjoyable, is also technical and challenging. Musical learning is about thinking and acting musically, and we want to develop children’s imagination and creativity through music.

We acknowledge that children have come to school with a range of musical experiences, which have already contributed to their aural memory. We want to build upon their skills and knowledge, giving our children opportunities to listen to and appraise a wide range of music styles, traditions and genres, exposing them to the best in the musical canon.

Our curriculum is designed to enable all children to be musicians at their own level, helping them to discover and share their own unique talents.

Aims and objectives

The objectives of teaching music in our school are to enable children to:

• develop an understanding and appreciation of the interrelated dimensions of music: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture and structure.
• foster pupils' sensitivity to, and their understanding and enjoyment of music through an active involvement in listening, composing and performing.
• provide for the expression and development of individual skills and for sharing experience and cooperating with others; singing, playing, composing and listening can give individual and collective satisfaction.
• develop an awareness of musical traditions and developments in a variety of cultures and societies and the impacts of these traditions on popular music genres today.
• the capacity to express ideas, thoughts and feelings through music.
• provide the opportunity to experience a feeling of fulfilment which derives from striving for the highest possible artistic and technical standard.

“If music be the food of love, play on.” – William Shakespeare

Implementation

At St Michael’s Church of England Primary School, 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 the confidence of all children.

Planning and assessment of music is built around six main strands, which are interrelated and over lapping, providing increasing challenge as the children progress through the school. These are:

• singing
• composing
• improvising
• playing
• critical engagement / listening
• social, moral spiritual and cultural (SMSC)

Planning and Assessment Spiral

(ISM National Curriculum for Music 2019)

Our school uses the Charanga scheme of work for music as the basis for its curriculum. In order to develop the social and cultural experiences of our children, we choose specific units and resources that will meet the needs of our children, linking to both their own social and cultural environments and enabling exposure to a wide range of music styles, genres and traditions. The Charanga scheme builds upon prior learning. While there are opportunities for children of all abilities to develop their skills and knowledge in each teaching unit, the progression planned into the scheme of work means that the children are increasingly challenged as they move through the school. The Charanga scheme of work links directly to the objectives in the 2014 National Curriculum.

Teachers have access to other ideas and resources, including the ISM Primary Music Toolkit and they adapt any published materials used to meet the needs of their pupils. We also encourage cross-curricular links, ensuring music is taught as a holistic part of the curriculum where possible.

We recognise that in all classes, children have a wide range of musical ability, and so we seek to provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. We achieve this in a variety of ways:

• setting tasks which are open-ended and can have a variety of responses;

• setting tasks of increasing difficulty;
• providing resources of different complexity, depending on the ability of the child
• using classroom assistants to support the work of individuals or groups of children

                    “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” – Plato

Impact

Our curriculum will enable pupils to develop a critical engagement with music and to develop the skills and confidence to compose and perform, expressing themselves musically. Children will develop a breadth and range of musical experiences and confidence, sensitivity and creativity in music making. Children will be able to apply the imagination and creativity developed through their musical learning in other areas of learning.

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence in between.” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Sequence of teaching

The sequence of teaching is as follows:

“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.” – Maya Angelou