Our intent:
At Penryn Primary Academy, music teaching 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.
We encourage all pupils to:
- develop musical skills and concepts through listening & appraising, singing & playing, composing and performing.
- develop social skills through co-operation with others in the shared experience of music making.
- develop an understanding of musical traditions and developments in a variety of cultures and over time.
- be motivated to enjoy and succeed in music.
As a school we ‘block’ topic learning, and music is also taught in this way. We are informed by the model music curriculum (March 2021), which is non-statutory guidance for teaching music from Key Stages 1 to 3 or any other published curriculum guidance.
We use ‘Charanga’ to resource our music teaching, and have taken our intent questions from this program. As part of this, every child is given the opportunity to play an instrument for one music ‘block’ per year. We have a plethora of instruments here at Penryn Primary Academy, but the glockenspiels and recorders are used in line with the charanga instrument teaching. These blocks result in an assembly performance to the rest of the Key Stage.
Here at Penryn Primary Academy, we also offer ‘First Access’ musical instrument teaching for year 3. This cohort benefits from external music teachers coming in to teach an instrument to the whole class for a 10 week block. Children have a chance to perform what they’ve learnt to the rest of the school at the end of the block.
Nursery
Through the ‘Inspiration’ project, we’ve been able to offer a musical program to our Nursery and EYFS cohorts, delivered by a local independent provider. This was an opportunity for our nursery children to access music delivered by a local professional. Music teaching is used to support the development of phonological awareness, patterns, rhyming, speech and language.
Reception
At Penryn Primary Academy, Music is woven into Continuous Provision, and children are given plenty of opportunity to explore and perform. Children learn to count rhythm, and use singing and vocal warm ups to support the learning of initial sounds in phonics. Music and movement is a daily part of life in our nursery classes and reception class. The focus on music to support other areas of development are covered in Communication and Language; Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Expressive Arts.
Year 1
In KS1 and KS2 we follow the English Model Music Curriculum which is informed by the MMC (Model Music Curriculum) published by the DFE. We access Charanga as a key resource for this.
Each unit involves a variety of musical activities, centred around given songs:
- Listen and Respond
- Improvise with the Song
- Sing and play instruments
- Perform the Song
Year 2
In year 2, tuned instruments are introduced, and children begin to experiment with composition and creating a Graphic Score. Within this, the children start understand how to use symbols to represent sounds as well as making connections between notation and musical sounds. In their singing, the children continue building upon their previous learning beginning to deepen their knowledge of how to sing and follow a melody.
Year 3
In places we expand upon the Charanga MMC to provide greater opportunities and make the most of the teaching skills available at Penryn Primary Academy. In year 3, this consists of First Access, provided through the local music hub. In this scheme, music lessons are delivered by professional peripatetic music teachers. This ensures every child experiences a new musical instrument at this point in their education.
Year 4
Modules of music teaching, taken from the Model Music Curriculum on Charanga are used to support and enrich our existing topics. Children are involved in creating music through the composition features on Charanga, with children using headphones on Chromebooks to allow for the whole class to partake in the activity. Children also learn how to describe the different purposes of music through different styles of composition.
Year 5
Year 5 pupils expand their musical knowledge, and learn to play the recorder alongside the Charanga modules in Gospel, Rock and Roll, and Classical Orchestral. Performance skills are also honed as they perform their instruments to the school in assembly. Children will also develop their understanding of how to change sounds, organise them differently to change its effect, as well as composing music to that meets a specific criteria. Finally, the children will also continue developing their musical vocabulary using it in their evaluations to describe what they hear.Year 6
In year 6 at Penryn Primary Academy, the children will build on their confidence, singing in harmony, confidently and accurately as well as performing parts from memory. They will build upon their previous knowledge understanding the role of their part and that of others. Moreover, the children will build upon their previous learning of identifying famous composers knowing how to contrast their work and explaining their reasoning and preferences.
