West Bridgford Infant School Music Vision

We believe that music is an essential part of life and is integral to developing the whole child, and our music curriculum at W.B.I.S reflects this. Our aim is to foster a life-long love, enjoyment and appreciation of music, and to nurture the children’s cultural and spiritual knowledge, confidence and experiences. We want to provide our children with a curriculum that inspires, challenges and is fun! We believe music is essential for developing a child’s social and emotional health, and can have a very positive impact on their well-being.

Intent

Our planning follows the National Curriculum, The Model Music Curriculum, and the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory framework which is supported by Development Matters’ 2021. Through our high quality knowledge based curriculum, children are able to develop their creativity, imagination, and self-confidence which links to our Shining Brightly Themes. Through these themes, we encourage children to become learners who are independent, will persevere, and show resilience and enthusiasm when faced with challenges. This encourages the children to think critically, and express themselves creatively!

Implementation

Our curriculum provides children with opportunities to work collaboratively, have a go, and develop their sense of achievement. We build on their prior learning to ensure learning is sequential. They will participate in a range of activities to develop their understanding of:

• Singing and listening
• Composition
• Musicianship.

Singing underpins our music curriculum, and through weekly music assemblies children are taught how to warm up their voices, sing with an understanding of pitch and rhythm, and build up a repertoire of songs. Our curriculum is further enriched through outside providers who offer engaging and exciting new experiences for the children, such as Drumba and instrumental workshops.

Impact

We ensure that children at West Bridgford Infant School are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to be successful in music as they continue into KS2 and further. We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following ways:

• Continual assessment of the children’s knowledge and understanding of key vocabulary through questioning.
• Giving children time to reflect on their learning, and share their thoughts and opinions about music.
• Giving children opportunities to discuss prior learning to assess current understanding and embedded knowledge.
• Monitoring by the subject leader of music sessions and classroom practice.
• Professional dialogue with members of staff.
• Conversations with children to assess their current level of understanding.
• Observations of children during sessions to observe whether they are thinking creatively, taking creative risks and experimenting when using instruments for example.
• Children in the EYFS are formally assessed termly against Development Matters, within ‘Expressive arts and designs.’ At the end of EYFS, pupils are assessed against the ELGs.

National Curriculum Key Stage 1 Pupils should be taught:

• Use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes.
• Play tuned and untuned instruments musically.
• Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music.

Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.