St Michael’s C of E Junior SchoolMusic
Intent
At St Michael’s, Music is a hugely valued and treasured part of school life which permeates every part of the day. As a church school, music plays a crucial role in our times of Worship and Reflection. We believe that through singing together, learning to play and create music independently and together in groups, performing to each other and through listening and appraising our own and others’ music, we can become better learners in other subjects too. Through studying the elements of music practically in dedicated weekly sessions through a diverse range of topics over Key Stage Two, we aim to prepare the children for a lifetime of musical curiosity, love and appreciation.
Implementation
Every class across the Junior school benefits from weekly 45 minute lessons with a specialist Music teacher. We have excellent resources including African and Brazilian percussion, tuned percussion, and class sets of recorders, keyboards and ukuleles to challenge children with ‘real’ instruments. We have access to music technology on iPads to create our own music. Children learn to develop their musical skills using the instruments, and regularly perform to each other and discuss music using appropriate terminology. They listen to and learn to play music from pop, classical and world music genres, and learn how music is constructed using the elements of music so that they can create their own too. We have extra-curricular music opportunities for the children too – this year, we offer Choir and Ukulele Club which are open to all.
Impact
Children perform to each other regularly and are encouraged to be supportive of each other, which helps them to develop their confidence and respect. They learn valuable cross-curricular skills of independence, and co-operation and negotiation in group and pair work. They are able to bring their own experience of music to the classroom too by bringing their own instrument in to show or participate, or tell us about their own musical experiences. All levels of attainment are recognised, supported and celebrated. Termly assessments of progress are completed by the music teacher and recorded on a spreadsheet, and regular audio recordings and photo/video of class work is taken.