At St. Michael's, we believe that music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A successful school is a musical school. In our School, music is alive, it is celebrated and it forms an integral part of every day. We place immense value of the power of music to help build pupils’ self-esteem, to encourage creativity, to build relationships, to foster life skills and to benefit children’s learning across the whole curriculum. Music is fun, music is for life and music is for everyone. "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)
At St. Michael's we provide high quality opportunities for pupils to play, compose, sing, improvise, listen to and evaluate music across a wide variety of musical genres, styles, traditions, and historical periods, including the works of the great composers and musicians from all over the world. We are committed to fostering an increasing love of and curiosity for music, developing children’s imagination and creativity so that they can understand and explore how music is composed, produced and communicated and so that they can experience the sheer joy and pleasure of performing and creating music.
We are committed to ensuring children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community and aim to give them opportunities to use their musical skills, knowledge, and experiences to involve themselves in music in a variety of different contexts. Music is a practical subject; it is academic, creative, technical and challenging. At St. Michael's, all children have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, to take part in a musical performance and to progress to the next level of musical excellence.
Music teaching at St. Michael's 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. 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 worships and key stage performances (KS1 Nativity and KS2 Summer Show), 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:
Term 1 | Term 2 | Term 3 | Term 4 | Term 5 | Term 6 | |
| Yr.R | The children will build a repertoire of Nursery Rhymes | We will teach the children instrument names and how to play instruments to accompany simple beats, rhymes, and songs. |
| The children will continue to build their repertoire of songs and learn how to retell a story to make it interesting – changing their voices and bodies to make a character. |
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| Yr.1 | This term our Music lessons will focus around listening and responding. To linked with topic, the children will be listening to traditional English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish pieces, making comparisons and sharing their likes and dislikes of the musical pieces they hear. | This half term we will focus on singing to take part in a performance at the end of the term. |
| We will be using percussion instruments to help us explore beat and rhythms and read simple musical instructions | We will be playing instruments but we will be particularly focusing on musical vocabulary, exploring its meaning and demonstrating our understanding. | |
| Yr.2 |
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| In Music, we will be learning to play simple rhythms on the glockenspiel, focusing on repeated patterns and pace. | In Music, we will be continuing to play the glockenspiel, moving onto playing simple songs both individually and as a group. | In Music, we will be exploring timbre and texture as the children explore descriptive sounds. They will listen to, and perform music inspired by stories from around the world. | In Music, we will be continuing to explore sounds by listening to famous pieces of music to stimulate composition. The children will then interpret a storyboard with sound effects, and develop their own ideas using voices and percussion. |
| Yr.3 |
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| In Music, we will be learning to play the recorder. We will start by learning how to play each note then progress onto simple songs. | In Music, we will be learning to play the recorder. We will start by learning how to play each note then progress onto simple songs, we are now progressing onto more complex songs. |
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| Yr.4 | - Show an understanding of the correct posture and how to hold the instrument - Sing back simple rhythms and pitches of pieces to consolidate learning - Playback simple rhythms - Has basic wind control and can produce a sound effectively. - Perform simple melodies on a single pitch. - Play C, B, D and recognise them on the music stave - Recognise 1 beat, 2 beat and 4 beat notes and rests - Follow and perform simple scores to a steady beat - Compose/improvise simple pieces using familiar backing tracks, open strings and known rhythms Crotchet, Minim, semibreve, Crotchet Rest, Minim Rest, semibreve rest, improvise, compose | - count accurately and interpret rests and pauses. - show good breath control to produce a phrase of music. - play the correct pitch of note and adjust accordingly. - play C, B, D, E, F and recognise them on the music stave - sing the phrases they are playing and sing in two parts. - maintain their individual part accurately. - play in two or more parts (e.g melody and accompaniment or a duet) from simple notation - improvise and make decisions about the structure of the improvisation/ composition - combine known rhythmic notation with letter names to create short phrases.
Key Vocabulary: Embouchure, diaphragm, bar line, fine, repeat, legato, staccato, pitch, rests, note names, accompaniment, duet, introduction, improvise, compose | - Control over dynamics (loud & soft), and can stick to a tempo or pulse. - play A,B, C, D, E, F, G, A and recognise them on the music stave - Recognise and interpret basic features of staff notation - Suggest how performances can be improved, and act on suggestions - Recognise pitch and play/sing different melodies and rhythms, pitching accurately - Be aware of and play different time signatures. - Achieve and be aware of a sense of ensemble. - Be involved in performances on their instrument. - Be able to compose music to create a specific mood.
Key Vocabulary: Pulse, notes, rests, semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver, repeat, fine, bar-lines, time signatures, forte (loud), piano (soft), allegro, vivo, presto, moderato, andante, lento, treble clef, stave, ledger lines, crescendo and diminuendo, 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, Ensemble, texture, balance | |||
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