Our music curriculum follows our principles of teaching and curriculum and we value the important part that music plays in children's educational journey.

How does the curriculum work?

Each unit, over the course of six lessons, follows the same structure. At first the children listen to and encounter music which will form the focus of their musical learning. This is not a passive exercise: they are encouraged to actively engage with the area of musical learning which will be the focus of the unit. They then explore the key musical ingredients and cultural context of the piece of music through active music making. Practising, improvising and/or composing then allows them further to experience and investigate the key musical focus before performing the music they have made to their peers. Evaluation of their own and others’ performances concludes the process. Each lesson in the unit also follows a broadly similar structure: warming up the body and the voice using songs which relate to the musical focus of the unit; recalling prior learning; listening to, responding to and exploring music which forms the focus of learning for the lesson; creative practice based around the focus music whether by composing, improvising, practising or performing; evaluating and reflecting at the end of the lesson. A familiar structure week by week aims to create and perpetuate an effective learning environment. Each lesson starts with singing as this is the essential basis of musical learning. Learning music through movement (as developed by the methods of Dalcroze and Kodály) is also seen as a central element of musical development and therefore forms an important part of each lesson. Western notation is learned using the methods of Kodály and introduced slowly and in relation to a gradual increase in understanding of musical elements which the children experience as the focus of each unit. It is important that ‘sound’ is encountered and understood before its corresponding ‘symbol’ is introduced. Finally, each lesson includes an element of working with others. This is central to musical practice and may be experienced as a whole class or in smaller groups which are introduced as the children get older and can manage social cooperation with more efficacy. This curriculum is for classroom music and as such does not seek to cover learning an instrument or wider musical opportunities such as singing in a choir, playing in a band or ensemble, performing outside the classroom and watching musical performances outside the school setting. It is expected that such activities, which are important (and recommended by both the MMC and National Plan for Music Education (NPME) (2022)) will be provided alongside classroom music, which forms only a part of a child’s musical education at school. Music which the children listen to, create and perform as a part of this curriculum can, of course, be a springboard or impetus for musical activity outside of the classroom.