Music at The Winns

Intent

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon. (The National Curriculum)

Music teaching at The Winns aims to follow the specifications of the National Curriculum; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum and ensuring the progressive development of musical concepts, knowledge and skills. At The Winns we believe that music plays an integral role in helping children to feel part of a community, therefore we provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music both in class and to an audience. Through performances, children showcase their talent and their understanding of performing with awareness of others. Lessons enable children to develop their skills, appreciate a wide variety of music and begin to appraise a range of musical genres.

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

• Enjoy and have an appreciation for music.
• Listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, cultures, styles and traditions.
• Can sing and use their voices to create different effects.
• Create and compose music, both on their own and with others.
• Use a range of musical language.
• Make judgements and express personal preferences about the quality and style of music.
• Take part in performances with an awareness of audience.

Implementation

Music teaching at The Winns delivers the requirements of the National Curriculum through use of the Charanga scheme of work. Teachers follow the suggested scheme of work, although adaptations can be made using the ‘freestyle’ element of the package to substitute units deemed to be more appropriate for thematic learning in other curriculum areas. Music lessons are broken down into half-termly units and an emphasis is placed on musical vocabulary, allowing children to talk about pieces of music using the correct terminology.

Each unit of work has an on-going musical learning focus and lessons usually follow a specific learning sequence:

• Listen and Appraise
• Musical Activities (including pulse and rhythm)
• Singing and Voice
• Playing instruments
• Improvisation / Composition
• Perform and Share

Our progression model also follows the same learning sequence to ensure all interrelated elements of music are covered and implemented. Within the EYFS setting, music is an integral part of children’s learning journey. Rhyme and rhythm are utilised throughout the learning of phonics, handwriting and mathematics. Children learn a wide range of songs and rhymes and develop skills for performing together. Singing and music making opportunities are used frequently to embed learning, develop musical awareness and to demonstrate how music can be used to express feelings. Children in Year 5 benefit from whole class specialist brass teaching, delivered by a member of Waltham Forest Music. Children in years 3 & 4 take part in the Keys of Inspiration program provided by the Lang Lang Foundation. These lessons allow children the opportunity to learn to play an instrument as part of an ensemble and to engender a love of music learning. Throughout the sessions the interrelated elements of music are developed. Performance is at the heart of musical teaching and learning at The Winns and pupils participate in a range of performances during their school ‘career’. These include class assemblies, musical showcase performances, Christmas concerts and a Leavers performance (Year 6). Pupils also take part in weekly singing assemblies. Pupils who are confident are encouraged to perform in solo performances. Parents are invited and welcomed to watch all of these performances whether at school or outside of school. Alongside our curriculum provision for music, pupils also have the opportunity to participate in additional 1:1 music teaching by being offered the opportunity to learn a musical instrument with peripatetic teachers. Our peripatetic music teaching is organised by Waltham Forest Music Service.

Impact

After the implementation of our music curriculum, pupils should leave The Winns equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and to be able to enjoy and appreciate music throughout their lives. The expected impact is that pupils will:

• Be confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school.
• Show an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and will understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social, and historical contexts in which it is developed.
• Understand the ways in which music can be written down to support performing and composing activities.
• Demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and be able to identify their own personal musical preferences.
• Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the national curriculum for Music.

Individual instrumental tuition

At The Winns, we offer tuition in a range of instruments:

• guitar
• piano
• woodwind
• brass
• violin

If you are interested in signing your child up for instrumental lessons at school, please contact the main office.

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