Curriculum – Music
At St Bede’s, our aim is for pupils to explore and enjoy the creative and magical world that music has to offer. It is a powerful, unique form of communication that can change the way pupils feel, think and act. Listening to and making music fulfils an instinctive human need for self-expression and creativity. It stimulates responses both on emotional and intellectual levels and it can be a life-long source of pleasure. With practical music making at the core of our curriculum, we hope that pupils will develop the confidence and skills to compose, improvise and perform on a range of instruments, including voice. We intend for our children to develop an interest and understanding of the history of music, as well as analyse and celebrate different musical genres; from folk, to classical, jazz and world music. We encourage self-expression and want our pupils to engage in our school’s musical culture, not just in the classroom, but on the school yard, during assemblies, out in the community and in church. We hope that our pupils will use music as a tool to keep their minds healthy, through worship and prayer, as well as mindfulness. When our pupils leave, we want to them to have an appreciation and love of music and have experienced the profound benefits that music has to offer.
Using the 2014 National curriculum as our broad framework, we aim for all pupils 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 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 inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations
More specifically, we use Durham Music Service’s (2019) progression map as a basis for planning and assessment. This ensures that we teach the progression of musical skills systematically and consistently from year to year.