Music

At St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, we aim to promote musical education, allowing children to express their creativity, take risks and develop their musical and artistic skills. We encourage students to reflect on their learning through the lens of Catholic values and virtues, which are central to our school and the Our Lady of the Magnificat Multi-Academy Trust. Students serve God by singing, playing instruments, and participating in mass and worship sessions, using and enhancing their God-given talents to reach their full creative potential. We aim to offer a broad, stimulating, and progressive music curriculum within school hours and through a range of extra-curricular activities. This curriculum is delivered through exceptional music teaching and a range of musical experiences. At St Mary’s, students have access to a variety of instruments, music lessons and plentiful opportunities for singing and performance throughout their school experience. These musical activities build their confidence, concentration, self-discipline, and teamwork. Children are given the opportunity to experience live musical theatre during educational trips and visits, and events such as talent shows and showcases allow children to share their musical gifts with peers.

Intent:

At St Mary's, we have designed our music curriculum which enables children to:

• Develop a passion for music, in which pupils learn to appreciate music and develop a life-long love of music.
• Develop their skills, knowledge and understanding, to enable them to be become confident performers, composers and listeners
• Are introduced to a variety of genres of music from around the world and across generations, recognising the multicultural nature of our school and how we use music as a medium to explore and appreciate British and other cultures
• Develop their musical skills through singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, composing music and responding to music that they listen to
• Develop transferrable skills which are key in their development as learners and have a wider application in their lives both inside and outside of school e.g.: team-working, leadership, creative thinking, decision-making and performance skills.

Implementation:

Our music curriculum is taught:

• Progressively so that it begins in the Early Years, where the children’s musical awareness is developed to support their imagination and creativity. 
• So that the individual strands of music are interwoven in lessons to create engaging, enriching learning that progresses through the years and throughout the key stages.  Music lessons comprise of: performing, listening, composing, the history of music and the interrelated dimensions of music.
• Pupils knowledge is built upon year-on-year.
• Using Kapow Primary’s Music scheme of work as a guide. This ensures that previous skills and knowledge are returned to and built upon through engaging, well designed lessons. As pupils’ skills are developing, their understanding of the history of music, composition skills and interrelated dimensions of music are also being furthered
• Working alongside County Music, who provide a half term of specialist musical instrument tuition to each class.
• If pupils wish to learn how to play a musical instrument, they are enabled to do this with the direction of specialised music teachers who visit the school to deliver lessons

Impact:

By the end of their educational journey at St Mary's, our children are confident performers, composers and listeners, who are able to express themselves musically at school and beyond. 

Please find below our yearly plan for music, outling the units that will be delievered in each year group. Our subject development plan outlines our goals and priorities for music teaching for the 24-25 academic year.