Intent

It is our intent that children explore how music connects people and places, often contributing to people’s identity through its historical, cultural and social origins.

St Gabriel’s children gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions, and musical genres. We are committed to developing a curiosity for the subject, as well as 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.

We aim to provide children with the opportunity to progress to the next level of their creative excellence.

Implementation

The music curriculum ensures children sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate in each lesson. Our music is taught by a professional musician, who is supported in each lesson by the children’s class teacher.

The different elements of music are taught in 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 children learn how to play a variety of instruments such as the ukulele, recorder, glockenspiels or djembe drums.

Playing various instruments enables children to use a range of methods to create notes, as well as how to read basic music notation. They also learn how to compose, focusing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music.

Our music curriculum is enhanced in daily Collective Worship across the school when we learn and sing hymns.

Due to where our school is located, there are many resources that we can capitalize on. For example, the school has strong connections with the Pimlico Music Foundation who hosts musical showcases for local schools to take part in. Classes also engage in drumming workshops in which they learn not only music from other cultures but skills and techniques when learning how to play percussion instruments.

We believe that is important to provide opportunities for children to pursue their musical interest beyond school hours so we have ensured our families can opt for private piano and singing lessons.

Impact

All children will participate in quality music sessions across the year. At St Gabriel’s Primary School children are provided with opportunities beyond the National Curriculum to further and support their understanding. Our pupils, within lessons, demonstrate high levels of engagement and motivation to develop their understanding of music to the best of their ability. They are able to work collaboratively when composing and performing and are confident to use technical vocabulary when analysing pieces of music which are explicitly taught.

Our pupils have a great appreciation that our Music Curriculum reflects our diverse community and it is an essential element of culture. They are confident to express how sharing music from one culture to another gives people an insight into another way of life.

The impact the teaching of music has at St Gabriel’s is clearly evident, not only in the children's performance in lessons and daily singing in collective worship, but in the special termly musical showcases we host and in the end of year production.  

* BBC Bitesize KS1 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z7tnvcw

* BBC Bitesize KS2 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zwxhfg8

* BBC – Pieces and Composers - https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ten-pieces/the-pieces-and-composers/zmc38xs