Music

Our curriculum intent is to develop children’s understanding and confidence in three key elements: performance, listening and appraisal. We then break those three strands into more specific skills while building understanding of musical vocabulary. Our music curriculum builds on the skills and knowledge gained in each previous year group. It continues to develop children’s musical abilities, encouraging them to explore more complex concepts while fostering creativity, expression, and a deeper understanding of music. Windy Nook’s curriculum follows the National Curriculum objectives.

The implementation of this is delivered through regular, whole-class music lessons where children explore musical notation, composition, rehearsal, performance and appraisal. These skills are regularly revisited and reinforced.

Music is taught through a mixture of whole-class lessons that follow a uniform scheme of work; this scheme is quality assured, progressive and meets our three key elements: performance, listening and appraisal.

We also have regular peripatetic music teachers delivering specialisms such as LKS2 weekly violin lessons, UKS2 drumming workshops and KS1 singing workshops. ‘Minute of Listening’ and ‘Classic 100’ support children in developing their listening and appraisal skills – where vocabulary is regularly taught and reinforced. As well as this, small-group music tuition is offered by brass, woodwind, strings and percussion teachers.

The impact is assessed through regularly-uploaded video and sound recordings. These are monitored for progression in skills and improved knowledge of key concepts. The impact os seen in our many musical performances; we celebrate children’s musical abilities through a range of events e.g. Christmas Carol Service, Easter Service, Summer Concert, Year 6 Leavers’ Assembly etc. Children sing every day during assembly and our school choir enjoy performing in school and the wider community.

In the Early Years, Music is linked to Expressive Arts and Design Development. For further information, please refer to the Evidencing Subjects in the Early Years at Windy Nook Primary Document or click on the link for Birth to 5 Matters There is a strong focus on singing and listening to music and sounds. In the Early Years, Music is linked to Expressive Arts and Design Development.