Music

Music

Where words fail, music speaks.”

― Hans Christian Andersen


I am a musician. I explore the rhythm, melody and texture of different pieces and am inspired to compose music using my voice, tuned and untuned instruments. I listen and respond to music in a variety of ways. I can express how a piece of music makes me feel or the atmosphere I think it is trying to create. I sing with others and I am learning how to be brave and perform in front of different size audiences.

Music Champions: 

 

Miss Urry

Music Lead

Miss Hurst

KS1 Choir

Mr Cascarina

KS1 Choir


Intent


The National Curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:


• Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music

• Be taught to sing, create and compose music

• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated.


At St Petroc’s, we believe that music is a unique way of communicating that can inspire and motivate our children. We feel that it is a vehicle for the children’s personal expression and that it can play an important part in their personal development. Music reflects the culture and society we live in, and so the teaching and learning of music at St Petroc’s supports our children in understanding the world in which they live. Besides being a creative and enjoyable activity, we know that music can be a highly academic and demanding subject, lending itself to many other areas of our curriculum. It also plays an important part in helping our children feel part of a community. At St Petroc’s, we provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop the skills, to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms, and to begin to make judgements about the quality of music.


Implementation


Our music curriculum ensures students sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in the classroom activities as well as the weekly singing assemblies, various concerts and performances and the learning of instruments. The elements of music are taught in our classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to dissect it, understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. At St Petroc’s, pupils have the opportunity to play instruments; in doing so, they understand the different principle of each method of creating notes, as well as how to read basic music notation. They also learn how to compose focussing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. Composing or performing using body percussion and vocal sounds is also part of the curriculum, which develops the understanding of musical elements without the added complexity of an instrument.

Impact


The children at St Petroc’s, have access to a varied programme, which allows students to discover areas of strength, as well as areas they might like to improve upon. The integral nature of music and the learner creates an enormously rich palette from which our pupils may access fundamental abilities such as: achievement, self-confidence, interaction with and awareness of others, and self-reflection. For our pupils, music will also help them to develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to themselves individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world. At St Petroc’s, children are able to enjoy music, in as many ways as they choose- either as listener, creator or performer. They can dissect music and comprehend its parts. They can sing and feel a pulse. They have an understanding of how to further develop skills less known to them, should they ever develop an interest in their lives.


Music and Reading


Here at St Petroc's we believe that reading is such an important skill and should be embedded across the curriculum. In Year 5, we have been trialling using song lyrics in our guided reading sessions and dissecting their meanings. Feel free to have a go at doing this with your children at home - they are recommended for children in KS2. Note: the link below does include further links to YouTube videos of the songs involved.

https://www.2starsandawish.com/songs-home


Music at home


If you would like to carry on your child's music learning at home, visit this website:


https://www.minuteoflistening.org/


It is free to sign up for an account.


The website gives you a one minute snippet of music (from a HUGE range of genres, cultures etc.) and then some questions to answer to get the children thinking about what they have just heard.


There are specific Christmas and International Women’s Day collections (amongst others) too for those who are interested. Some have small (optional) activities attached too if you would like to take things a bit further.