Music
Intent
At Willowbrook, we give children a wide range of musical experiences.
Using the Kapow music curriculum which gives children the opportunity to engage with music of all styles and from all cultures. This 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. This 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.
Kapow Music Curriculum
Through the successful implementation of Kapow Primary’s music curriculum, we embed the key strands of musical teaching: performing, listening, composing, the history of music, and the interrelated dimensions of music. Over the course of the program, children are taught to sing fluently and expressively, and to play both tuned and untuned instruments with accuracy and control. They learn to recognize and name the interrelated dimensions of music—pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture, and dynamics—and confidently use these as part of their musical vocabulary. Music is scheduled for a minimum of 30-45 minutes per week to ensure regular engagement, supporting spaced retrieval and learning processes. Utilising this curriculum means children revisit and build upon previous knowledge advancing their musical understanding over time.
In addition to Kapow, we use Wiltshire Music Connect lesson plans to deliver Ukulele workshops
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 where there are opportunities throughout the year for children to choose the songs they would like to sing. We give opportunities for children to perform over the school year to our school community including at Christmas when we hold a carol service at St James, and during special assemblies.
