Intent

At Canklow Woods, we wish to 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. We provide equal opportunities for all whereby every child in our school is given the chance to learn how to play instruments and is given the opportunity to perform with them in front of an audience.

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

• Know and understand how sounds are made and then organised into musical structures.
• Know how music is made through a variety of instruments.
• Know how music is composed and written down.
• Know how music is influenced by the time, place and purpose for which it was written.

• Develop the interrelated skills of performing, composing and appreciating music.
• Develop their confidence when performing in front of others. 
• Use technical vocabulary such as volume, pitch, beat and rhythm and encourage children to discuss music using these terms.
• Develop a love of music where they see their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. 
• Listen to, sing and appreciate songs from other parts of the world and different periods in time.
• Develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to a wide repertoire of music.  

As staff, we intend to continue to review and update the music curriculum to ensure that staff and children experience good musical experiences and improve their knowledge and understanding. Our teaching staff will continue to liaise effectively with all peripatetic music teachers.

Implementation

The Charanga scheme of work is used from Foundation to Year 6 to ensure a wide exposure to different genres of music, with lots of practical opportunities to explore and develop as musicians and singers. This scheme is in line with the National Curriculum and is adapted whenever necessary. Foundation Stage 1 to Year 6 pupils all have one lesson per week, however from Year 3 onwards, this is with a peripatetic music teacher who works for Rotherham Music. 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 our school. 

In particular year groups, children are taught to play the following instruments:

Year 2: Recorders 

Year 3: Recorders

Year 4: Clarinets 

The Early Years Foundation Stage

Both our FS1 and FS2 class have a weekly music session from their class teacher as well as the children taking part in various other musical activities. There are many cross-curricular links such as singing nursery rhymes to help with language development and singing songs to help with their mathematics vocabulary and understanding. Children also develop their emotions by questioning how the music makes them feel and learning songs from different cultures increases a child’s knowledge and understanding of the world.

Key Stage 1

Pupils are 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.

Key Stage 2

Pupils are taught to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.

Pupils should be taught to:

*Play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression.

*Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music.

*Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory.

*Use and understand staff and other musical notations.

*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. 

Other opportunities

We believe that music enriches the lives of people and so we wish to involve as many children as possible in musical activities where they can perform in front of others. At Canklow we hold several concerts which include solo and ensemble singing as well as playing musical instruments. Every year, we hold three separate Christmas concerts to showcase children’s musical abilities which parents and carers attend. Key Stage 2 children perform at the Big Blast alongside pupils from other schools as a celebration of musical instruments in Rotherham. On top of this, we celebrate children’s love of singing at the One Voice performance at Magna Science Adventure Centre. Whenever possible, LKS2 children also perform in the Rothervision song contest where they sing and dance to a Spanish song in front of children from other schools. These musical events are necessary to share their achievements with parents and carers and celebrate their success.