Music

Awarded June 2021

Intent, Implementation and Impact

Our vision for music is that all children are involved through enjoying, playing, composing and listening.

INTENT

At Alwoodley Primary School, our music curriculum intends to inspire creativity, self-expression and encourages our children on their musical journey as well as giving them opportunities to connect with others.   We hope to foster a lifelong love of music by exposing them to diverse musical experiences and igniting a passion for music.

Our intent is that the golden threads of Alwoodley are woven through the music curriculum and that over time these will provide our musicians with the experiences and skills that will enable them to deploy their musical knowledge in the next stages of their education. Golden thread one – cognitive education will be promoted so that children can reflect, analyse and create in music.  Golden thread two – a love of reading will be evident as pupils gain fluency in notation and enjoy reading about inspirational musicians. Finally, by listening and responding to different musical styles, finding their voices as singers, composing and performing, it is our intent that our musicians flourish and display a confidence that is reflective of our Golden thread three – PSHE.

‘Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity’ (The National Curriculum)

The aims of our Music curriculum are to develop pupils who:

• Can sing and use their voices individually and in a group
• Create and compose music on their own and with others
• Use technology appropriately when composing
• Have opportunities to learn a musical instrument
• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated
• Listen to, review and evaluate the work of great composers and musicians from a 

range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions

• Enjoy and have an appreciation of a range of different musical styles e.g. Classical, Jazz, Hip Hop, Pop, Rock etc.
• Use and understand musical language and include musical features in their own work
• Make judgements about the quality of music
• Have opportunities to play a wide variety of instruments
• Have different opportunities to take part in performances

IMPLEMENTATION

We follow the National Curriculum for music and in doing so our music curriculum ensures students sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in classroom activities as well as weekly singing assemblies, various concerts and performances, the learning of instruments, and the joining of musical ensembles. The elements of music are taught in classroom lessons so that children are able to use the language of music to discuss it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed.

In the classroom, students learn how to play various un-tuned and tuned percussion instruments. By the time our pupils have left Alwoodley Primary at the end of Key Stage 2 they will have experienced learning a minimum of 4 instruments.  Whole class instrument takes place from Year 3 on percussion, Year 4 brass, Year 5 Samba and Year 6 ukulele. In doing so our children understand the different principles of creating music, as well as how to devise and read their own musical scores and basic music notation. Children also learn how to compose focussing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. Composing or performing using body percussion, vocal sounds and technology is also part of the curriculum, which develops their understanding of musical elements without the added complexity of an instrument.

IMPACT

At Alwoodley, children have opportunities to explore their own musical journey, which allows them to discover areas of strength, as well as areas they might like to improve upon. Key Stage 2 children also have the opportunity to play instruments in small groups which are taught by peripatetic staff. 

We use a range of strategies to assess what skills and knowledge the children have attained each term including the following:

• Videos and photos of lessons (benchmarking)
• Use of super six or equivalent 
• Pupil Voice 
• Regular feedback each lesson
• Regular teacher assessments

Music plays an important part in our school from whole class music lessons to small group playing and from concerts to formal exams and special projects.

Whole Class instrument teaching

We are very lucky at Alwoodley to have whole class instrument tuition on the drums in Year 3, brass instruments in Year 4, Samba in Year 5 and ukulele in Year 6.

Keyboard Groups (small group tuition)
Keyboard lessons are taught by Mr Dodd from Artforms. Children can begin lessons in Year 3.

Woodwind (small group tuition)
Woodwind lessons start in Year 2.  In Year 2, the children start on the recorder where they learn how to read music and how to blow a woodwind instrument. From Year 3, children can choose to play either a flute, clarinet or saxophone. Miss Freitas, from Artforms, is our woodwind teacher.

Violins (small group tuition)
Mr Rickarby, from Artforms, teaches the violin. Lessons start in Year 2.

Guitar (small group tuition)
Guitar lessons are taught by Mr Hogg from Artforms. Children can begin lessons in Year 3.

Choir
Choir meets once a week at lunchtime. Twice a year members of the choir take part in the Leeds Town Hall Concert. The choir are also part of a successful world record attempt to have the largest number of people signing and singing at the same time.

Sign and sing club

This is an after school club for children in years 1-4. Children learn a range of makaton signs and enjoy using these as they sing.

Alwoodley band

The Alwoodley band is led by Miss Freitas and any child who is Grade 1 standard is welcome to join. This is held on a Tuesday after school.

Town Hall Concerts
Each year our musicians and members of the choir take part in the town hall concerts in the Spring and at Christmas.

To see our musical maestros in action, please look at our Twitter page @AlwoodleyPS