Music

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words.” Victor Hugo

“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.” Maya Angelou

Music is a universal language and one of the highest forms of creativity. At Girnhill Infant School we aim to provide children with the opportunities to learn and perform within a variety of different musical genres. We will teach subject specific music lessons enabling all children to learn the knowledge and skills required to be a ‘musician’. Our music education aims to engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music through a progressive curriculum. All children are given the opportunity to compose and create as well as play and perform using a variety of instruments.

At Girnhill Infant School we aim for all our children to:

  • Be introduced to subject specific vocabulary that a musician would use.  Children are encouraged to use this when performing, exploring and composing and listening, reflecting and appraising
  • Learn, work and talk like a musician
Intent
At Girnhill, we provide children with a high-quality music curriculum which equips pupils with the skills and knowledge to become a performer, a creator and a composer of music.

 

Music is taught through the ambitious National Curriculum and the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, enhanced and supplemented with the use of the INSPIRE Music Curriculum and Charanga. Using these documents, supports staff to plan small progressive steps in a specific coherent teaching sequence.

The music curriculum provided at Girnhill Infant focuses on the nine interrelated dimensions of music; pitch, pulse, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, texture, structure and notation and is explored throughout a variety of activities such as; listening and appraising; music activities; creating and exploring and singing and performing

We are ambitious in our expectations of all pupils, ensuring cross curricular links are made to develop children holistically. At Girnhill, we map out the National Curriculum and the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework for Music into a sequential and coherent progression model. This model outlines the substantive and disciplinary knowledge that will be covered as well as the vocabulary, enquiry questions and the sentence stems needed at each stage of learning.

 

At Girnhill Infant School, oracy is a powerful tool for learning; by teaching children to become more effective speakers and listeners we empower them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them. Vocabulary is purposeful and progressive to allow children to develop their expressive language and leave school being able to articulate their understanding of music using the four strands of good talk. Technical tiered vocabulary is modelled through flashcards and teacher talk using ‘my turn, your turn’. Sentence stems are used to provide children with a model of how to speak like a musician and scaffold their talk effectively. Questions are carefully planned in advance to target pre-empted misconceptions, address gaps in learning and enable children to develop their explanations of musical concepts.

Implementation

We ensure that all teachers, including those who are non-specialists, have excellent subject knowledge and are supported in the implementation of the curriculum through providing a sequential planning document and a well sequenced scheme of work.

Oracy is woven throughout our music curriculum as detailed in the progression grid and Knowledge Organisers

The progression grid outlines the oracy expectations of each year group and the Knowledge Organiser (for each topic) includes the sentence stems and vocabulary all learners need to acquire and use in order to talk like a musician. This will be modelled using flash cards, teacher talk using ‘my turn your turn’ and opportunities are made for children to practice using the vocabulary throughout lessons in both guided and independent practice.

Suggested sentence stems are provided and used in order to scaffold responses. Opportunities for children to practise the skill of presentational talk will be further developed in music through the use of mode B learning such as playing / presenting information on an instrument or performing a song to peers.

Through using Rosenshine’s principles, learners have the opportunity to revisit and build on prior knowledge. Daily review is used at the beginning of every session in order to activate prior learning to attach new learning to. High-quality modelling of skills and language is offered to our children and scaffolds are provided for difficult tasks. Classroom working walls and knowledge organisers demonstrate prior learning, promote the vocabulary specific to current learning, worked modelled examples, success criteria and visual sentence stems.

Impact

Learners have the skills to listen, appraise, compose and perform like a musician.

Learners are able to apply the music subject specific vocabulary to talk like a musician.

Children are exposed to a wide range of genres and children are able to recall facts about genres of music.