The Teaching of Music at St Mary and St Benedict Catholic Primary School

Curriculum Intent

Music is a unique way of communicating that can inspire and motivate children. It is a vehicle for personal expression and it can play an important part in the personal development of people. Music reflects the culture and society we live in, and so the teaching and learning of music enables children to better understand the world they live in. Besides being a creative and enjoyable activity, Music can also be a highly academic and demanding subject. It also plays an important part in helping children feel part of a community. We 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.

The aims of Music teaching 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.

We encourage children to participate in a variety of musical experiences through which we aim to build the confidence of all children. Singing lies at the heart of good music teaching. Our teaching focuses on developing the children’s ability to sing in tune and with other people. Through singing songs, children learn about the structure and organisation of music. We teach them to listen and to appreciate different forms of music. As children get older, we expect them to maintain their concentration for longer and to listen to more extended pieces of music. Children develop descriptive skills in music lessons when learning about how music can represent feelings and emotions. We teach them the disciplined skills of recognising pulse and pitch. We also teach children how to work with others to make music, how individuals combine together to make sounds and how to compose music to play together.

With support from Coventry Music, we provide the opportunity for all pupils in Key Stage 2 to learn to play a musical instrument. Currently, Years 3 and 4 are learning to play the Recorder and Years 5 and 6 are learning to play the Ukulele.

We recognise that there are children of widely different musical abilities in all classes, so we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. We achieve this in a variety of ways by:

• setting common tasks which are open-ended and can have a variety of responses;
• setting tasks of increasing difficulty 
• grouping children by ability in the room and setting different tasks to each ability group;
• providing resources of different complexity depending on the ability of the child;
• using classroom assistants to support the work of individuals or groups of children
• giving children the chance to perform in assemblies, hymn practices and collective worship

Additional Music Teaching

Some children may be offered the opportunity to study a musical instrument with peripatetic teachers. Peripatetic music teaching is supported and organised by Coventry Music. These lessons are aimed at children who are gifted /talented in Music. This is in addition to the normal music teaching of the school, and usually takes place during normal lessons from which children are withdrawn for the duration of the instrumental lesson. Children in Years  2 and 4 have the opportunity to perform in the Mousike Ensembles held annually in local schools. St Mary and St Benedict School host a weekly choir with the AC Academy (Armonico Consort https://www.armonico.org.uk/ac-academy/ ). Children from the school's surrounding area are invited to join.

Assessment, Recording and Reporting

By the end of each Key Stage the pupils should have developed an understanding and enjoyment of music through activities taken from the Programmes of Study. Assessment of pupils’ progress will be made against the Music Progress Map

Reporting to parents follows school guidance and procedures.