Intent

At St Thomas Becket Primary School, Children are exposed to the cultural diversity of music. They experience where music has come from by exploring existing music, and then are given the opportunities to explore their own creativity through performance, improvisation and composition. We want to immerse children into an enriched, aspirational and rounded curriculum so they are ambitious to use these skills throughout their lives as well has gain happy memories of the varied opportunities given. We make music an enjoyable learning experience and aim to give all children opportunities to learn musical skills, as well as nurture their own talents.

 

Implementation

Teaching in class is aided by the ‘Charanga Music Scheme’ and our music specialist teacher which work alongside the Model Music Curriculum. This resource ensures progression of music teaching through the year groups and provides fun music making activities and structured lessons. Our year 4s have the opportunity to learn instruments as a class through Sound Start, were professional music teachers teach them either Clarinet, Trombone, Trumpet or Guitar. Children then have the opportunity to continue this in later years at school as well as develop musicianship, keyboard and percussion skills.

We continue to celebrate our school talents through music and Arts week, and use this as an opportunity to deepen our pupils’ and teachers’ cultural capital of music that offers the chance to access more musical skills as well as enhance our teachers learning of the subject and CPD. Our assessment of music is based on the Model music Curriculum.

 

Impact

We are committed to a vibrant curriculum, and ensure we are constantly addressing our need for CPD and curriculum coverage. This is shown by our Gold Arts Mark Award and our commitment to continue further on this journey to improve our musical learning. Children will achieve a broad understanding of music and be able to show this knowledge to the best of their abilities and retain knowledge throughout the years that is pertinent to music as their skills develop greater depth.  Children will have the opportunity to foster their instrumental flare and use this as a form of expression.

Through our Arts week we have enjoyed many school exhibitions showcasing our children’s work including our artistic and musical skills in response to Vivaldi’s 4 seasons, our extravagant ‘Take One Picture’ Parade, school 50^th jubilee CD, and our music to reflect on BBC Ten Pieces program. We have recently developed a history of western classical music and use this timeline to deepen understanding and cultural capital.

Our extra-Curricular music includes our 80+ choir performing at the Christmas Carol Service, Passion play, and community concerts. We also have links with part in ‘Young Voices’ at the O2! We also enjoy trips to the royal opera house and Holland part, as well as invite composers and performers to the school for workshops.

We also have an excellent orchestra who really showcase their talents and play in many concerts throughout the year. We are always looking out for ensemble musicians to put together to play duets and trios for our concerts and love to celebrate our children’s’ musical abilities in our termly – and increasingly popular instrumental concerts.