Music Curriculum Statement: Intent, Implementation, Impact 

The Intent

In Key Stage One we do a lot of work with our voices, dancing, clapping, chanting, rhyming, singing, and enabling children to explore the sounds and effects their voices can make. We use this to give the children a strong sense of rhythm and pulse. The children also use a variety of tuned and untuned instruments, playing them musically to represent aspects of story, and begin to order sounds to create a beginning, middle and end of a piece. Children have the opportunity to explore lots of sounds and instruments and listen out for particular aspects to pieces in a range of musical genres.

In Key Stage Two we seek to refine the knowledge and skills acquired in Key Stage One, and build upon them, teaching the children to play musically with increasing confidence and control. Children learn to participate, develop and refine their improvisation and playing in groups, listening and responding to those around them. Children have the opportunity to become more familiar with and use appropriate vocabulary to describe music from varied historical periods and cultures from the renaissance to the 20th century. In this way children can understand the variety of music that exists and begin to develop their own tastes, preferences and forms of expression. Instrumental technique and understanding of musical notation is developed through time-tabled ukulele lesson, and singing, which is central throughout the year using tuned and untuned percussion, electronic keyboards, steel pans and glockenspiels.

Throughout both key stages children listen to a range of high quality music. We also have a weekly whole school singing assembly and several live performances throughout the year. These are performed by various clubs and groups including pianists, Rock Steady groups and the choir. 

The Implementation

We implement the music curriculum in a variety of ways. In Key Stage One teachers deliver the music curriculum supported by relevant programmes of study and the music coordinator. 

Music is regularly promoted, championed and celebrated throughout the school. Our pianists often contribute their performances to our daily listening music during collective worship. Singing is a central part of the school atmosphere and we always sing during collective worship and have a weekly signing assembly. The school provides access to extra-curricular individual and group music lessons throughout the week in the form of individual piano lessons, Rock Steady group lessons, choir, ukulele club and 'xylorhythmics' club, many of these are funded through the school's budget. In addition to this, in the Autumn term and Spring term we have whole school celebrations which always include signing and live piano playing, and Years 5 and 6 entertain everyone with a musical play in the Summer term.

The Impact

By the end of their time at Cherry Hinton Primary School we aim to ensure that children:

• Have the confidence to sing in groups, maintaining their own part whilst others are singing harmonies
• Have a good musical vocabulary and can use it to describe music from different cultures and periods in history
• Have basic skills to play a glockenspiel and ukulele
• Have explored varied timbres and textures, and enjoyed appreciating and describing a variety of musical performances, including their own
• Have created original music in response to a stimulus
• Enjoy the broader benefits of music, enjoying the effect that it can have in calming or exciting us and benefit from the effects it can have on the brain in opening new neural pathways, noticing how music might make them feel and using music to express themselves

The effectiveness of music teaching, the music curriculum and musical enrichment opportunities, and the impact these have on learning and standards throughout the school are monitored by the Head Teacher and Music Coordinator who observe and support teaching and delivery of the music curriculum.

Formative assessment of music is ongoing and integral to every lesson, summative assessment is shared with parents on the end of year school report. There is also a designated school governor who meets with the Music Coordinator to support the profile of music in the school.