Music
Intent: Our intent at St Joseph's Catholic Primary School is to deliver a broad and balanced Music curriculum that is ambitious, challenging and engaging. Our objective is for all of our children, including those who are disadvantaged and pupils with SEND, to develop a curiosity for the subject, as well as an understanding and acceptance of the validity and importance of all types of music. We are committed to ensuring that children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community, and are able to use their musical skills, knowledge, and experiences to involve themselves in music, in a variety of different contexts. We are committed to endeavour that our students leave our school with a value for the impact which music can have upon the world.
Implementation: At St Joseph’s the Music Curriculum is embedded through a structured scheme on a musical platform called Charanga. Through this scheme the 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. Each year group is assigned with musical vocabulary which the children are exposed to at the beginning of their weekly music lessons.
All the children are able to take part in singing, percussion and are allowed to have an appreciation of music. Instrumental tuition is provided to our school for pupils in KS2, but has to be paid for by parents. These lessons are held during the school day. Currently pupils receive tuition in the Brass and stringed instruments. Many children who have learnt to play instruments at our school have performed at special whole school events, as well as at places such as Symphony Hall. Children are encouraged to perform in assemblies and other social occasions throughout the school year. At St Joseph’s we also have a school choir who are provided with a rich variety of opportunities to perform, for example during Masses, concerts and seasonal events.
Impact: As a result of our engaging and vocabulary rich curriculum, children at our school are provided with opportunities to explore music in depth openly. The Charanga Scheme allows for the children to be challenged through three key areas which can be selected ‘Bronze, Silver and Gold’, Gold being the most challenging of all. The scheme is interactive and allows the children to experience music not only through instruments and learning to sing but also through exploring music through their bodies, for example by finding the pulse with actions. Music allows the children to identify with their individual cultures and enables them to make preferences around the styles of music which they prefer. They explore a range of musical styles from around the world. Music is a universal language, it allows all children to express themselves regardless of their abilities in other subjects, children can explore the subject without pressure and expectations. At Saint Joseph’s we are proud of the music at our school and promote the pupils to participate in extracurricular activities as well as musical opportunities within the school. We offer musical instrument lessons to the children with opportunities to learn both string and brass instruments; as well as a choir club which provides the children with a variety of performance opportunities at masses and concert events. We promote hymns during Masses and assemblies which allows our Catholic Faith to also be embraced through the musical ethos of our school. Such events and lessons allow the children to explore music in more depth and promote their confidence, when showcasing their talents.
