Music

All pupils participate in weekly music lessons and have the opportunity to perform throughout the year in front of their peers and parents in the Christmas Carol Services, class assemblies and end of year performance. Year 4, 5 and 6 children can also join our choir who perform at the O2 in the national event called Young Voices.

 

Intent: Introduction, Vision and Philosophy 

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.  

Music teaching at Harris Junior Academy Carshalton ensures 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. They have the opportunity to 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. Children should 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.  

 

Implementation: What does Music look like at HJAC?

Overview: 

From Year 3 to Year 6, music learning builds and progresses by becoming more proficient in using a wider range of instruments and instrumental techniques. Children increase their musical vocabulary throughout the range of different technical skills as well as the difficulty in the variety of pitches found in different songs. Within each year group, the learning follows a systematic approach; children learn to replicate and repeat what they hear before moving on to composing their own music and then create improvisations around their ideas once they have developed the first two skills. At HJAC, we use Charanga to support teachers with planning and resourcing. We use this because it provides teachers with relevant training programmes to develop their own subject knowledge. Charanga is an interactive online resource, which enables children to sing and perform together in a group. To develop teachers’ subject knowledge, subject leaders deliver termly CPD, as well as supporting with, and providing feedback on, half-termly planning for music. The subject leader themselves attends half-termly training as part of a small cluster group of schools, meeting with other leaders of music – these are all led by experts in the subject, and provide an opportunity to share good practise.  

 

Impact: Evidence and Assessment 
We expect children to show evidence of building on their prior knowledge and skills each year and for this to be clearly evident in their learning across the school. Evidence of progression in music is recorded each term by the class teacher. Children are given the opportunity to demonstrate their learned skills by performing in front of others in a class or performance setting. It is important for children to have the experience of performing in front of a large group. 

Our teachers rely on a range of assessment tools to provide data on the knowledge and skills pupils have, their progress and their development points 

This includes:

• assessment for learning 

• challenge tasks 

• enquiry tasks

• standards of learning in books

• end of unit questions and quizzing

• pupil voice