Music

Quotes that guide us:

‘Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity.’  National Curriculum  

“It is in learning music that many youthful hearts learn to love.’ Matthieu Ricard

Why is it important to teach music? (Intent)

Listening and producing music is something that brings people joy and that in itself is important. Music also plays a huge role in brain development. Studies have shown that music activities particularly in Early Years facilitate many different aspects of development and learning, providing one of the most effective influences on young people’s brain development at this key age. It has been shown to activate all three cortices (motor, visual and auditory) of children’s brains. It helps develop creativity and can also support children with their mental health and well-being. Our objective at Discovery MAT is to develop an understanding and acceptance of the validity and importance of all types of music, and an unbiased respect for the role that music may wish to be expressed in any person’s life.

Key Concepts:

•         That there have been different styles of music, and these have varied throughout history and vary throughout the world.
•         Music can affect what we think and feel and support our brain development.
•         We are all musicians, and we can use our voices, instruments, technology to communicate and bring joy.
•         Pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, volume and structure are key components to consider when listening to and creating music.
•         Music notation is a form of communication and a way to capture music in a written form.

Curriculum Design (Implementation)

We currently use the National Curriculum to guide us to support our planning. Whenever possible and most appropriate we link Music learning to our topic work. The Trust Music Coordinator has worked to develop the Music Progression Map, which breaks down the National Curriculum objectives into the small steps needed to build towards the key end goals. Covid has been a significant factor in the recent teaching of Music lessons, and as a Trust we aim to develop the teaching of music further through more regular and consistent whole class music lessons, as we begin to head towards normality again. One way in which we have begun to successfully ensure this, is through securing an external whole class music teacher from Plymouth Youth Music Service, who has been teaching multiple year groups across our schools, how to play different instruments.

We also provide a wide range of opportunity for our children to perform to an audience across all year groups; the Foundation Stage’s Nativity, Year 6 end of year production, each class assembly and the school choirs who have the opportunity to perform in the wider community. The elements of music are taught in the classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to dissect it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. In the classroom students learn how to play an instrument, from all four main instrument groups of wind, strings, percussion and keyboards. In doing so understand the different principle of each method of creating notes, as well as how to read basic music notation. They also learn how to compose focussing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. Composing or performing using body percussion and vocal sounds is also part of the curriculum, which develops the understanding of musical elements without the added complexity of an instrument.

Our Music curriculum aims to give the children the opportunity to:

•         perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians
•         learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, use technology appropriately and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence
•         understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the interrelated dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations

Knowledge Focused

The Music Progression Map, breaks down the National Curriculum objectives which produces the small steps needed to build towards the key end goals. This also ensures clear progression of knowledge and skills throughout the year groups and across the school. It highlights key language to be taught in the year groups, which teachers can implement throughout their planning and assessing.

What we do well as a Trust (Impact)

As well as discrete lessons Music lends itself to being a cross curricular subject in every way. Therefore, we link our music sessions to our topics to give it a context and to use it to deepen our understanding of a topic. Music is often played in lessons to create atmosphere, particularly in across subjects such as Art & Design. Music will also develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to students individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world. During our ‘Celebrating Diversity’ house day for example (an opportunity for children across all year groups to come together in four houses) one of the many activities was music centred and focused on listening to music from different ethnicities. Children can enjoy music, in as many ways as they choose - either as listener, creator or performer. They can dissect music and comprehend its parts. They can sing and feel a pulse. Within Discovery MAT, children can listen to and discuss a wide range of composers, including during whole-school assemblies. All the children also get to perform to the rest of the school and to parent/carers as a class during their class assemblies. As part of the Plymouth Youth Music Service coming to teach whole class lessons over a substantial time to learn an instrument, the music teachers will perform to give the children further opportunities to listen to high quality live performances.