Music
Intent
At Willowbrook, we are aiming to give children a wide range of musical experiences.
We are developing a music curriculum which gives children the opportunity to engage with music of all styles and from all cultures. This developing curriculum enables children to develop knowledge in understanding music, listening, and responding, learning to sing songs and playing a variety of instruments including glockenspiels, ocarinas and ukuleles. The children also learn to improvise, compose and perform using their voices and instruments. Our curriculum aims to inspire and engage children to build a love of music and enhance their skills as musicians. We aim to increase their sense of achievement, creativity and therefore their self confidence and self-esteem.
Implementation
At Willowbrook, we are developing a music curriculum to bring consistency and depth to the children’s musical knowledge. We aim for every child to enjoy their opportunities make music, listen and appraise pieces of music. Children are given opportunities to perform together to develop their sense of musicianship. Music is currently taught weekly in each year group and children love singing and playing instruments. Across the school, musical knowledge, skills and prior knowledge are built upon and revisited throughout the school with strong links made to previous knowledge and other curriculum areas. We currently blend several schemes to best fit our children’s needs as follows:
Charanga Model Music Curriculum
“The Scheme supports all the requirements of the national curriculum in England and is in line with published Ofsted guidance”. The Charanga scheme enables children to develop knowledge of the elements of music through songs. Charanga is being utilised in each year group at different points in the year. The Charanga planning is tailored to match the needs of each class and children learn to play the glockenspiel as well as learn new songs to sing.
Wiltshire Music Connect
“We connect children with a broad range of music making opportunities and experiences to complement and support what schools offer because music is excellent for developing young minds.” WMC
Children in year 2/3 and year 6 are learning to play the ukulele using the planning of Wiltshire Music Connect.
Acorn Academy Trust Planning
Further planning is provided by Acorn and is being utilised when linking to topic themes, such as the World War 1 and 2 topics in Year 6. This planning enables children to rehearse and refine songs for performance, develop an understanding of a piece or genre of music and develop their own ideas for composition.
Impact
Our children are learning to understand what being a 'musician' means. Along with building their musical knowledge, children are also developing skills of teamwork and resilience whilst improvising, composing and performing both independently and as part of a group. Our children are having opportunities to:
- Listen to, engage with and develop an appreciation for music
- learn to play tuned and un-tuned instruments
In addition, all children enjoy weekly singing assembly, and some children enjoy performing arts clubs and choir which run in different terms through the year.
