At Bewdley Primary School we strongly believe that music is an essential part of a balanced education. We aim to make music an enjoyable experience that encompasses the childhood joy and passion which motivates and inspires the children’s learning.

Our main priority at Bewdley Primary school is to develop a love and interest in music and to teach and perfect the skills implemented by the Model Music Curriculum. Throughout their time at the school, pupils revisit the threshold concepts through a wide breadth of topics in order to deepen their knowledge of music in all 4 key areas.

Threshold Concepts:

• Perform

This concept involves understanding that music is created to be performed.

• Compose

This concept involves appreciating that music is created through a process which has a number of      techniques.

• Transcribe

This concept involves understanding that compositions need to be understood by others and that there are techniques and a language for communicating them.

• Describe music

This concept involves appreciating the features and effectiveness of musical elements.

 

These Threshold concepts link to the National Curriculum for Music and aim to ensure that all pupils:

• 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 to 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.

It is our intention to enable 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 they hear. We also encourage children to participate in a variety of musical performances, both whole school and key stage based, through which we intend to build the confidence of all children and develop the interrelated skills of performing, composing and appreciating music. Through weekly singing of songs, children learn about the structure and organisation of music.

Our music scheme of work, Music Express Online, is intended to provide greater clarity whilst also allowing flexibility, it scaffolds the learning opportunities throughout the Key Stages. As children enter Upper Key Stage Two they are also introduced to longer, more complex pieces of music using the BBC’s Ten Pieces resources. As children get older, we intend that they develop descriptive skills in music lessons when learning about how music can represent feelings and emotions. We teach them the disciplined skills of recognising pulse and pitch.