Music
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything".
Plato
Music is food for the soul. At Compass Point Primary School we create, perform and appreciate music from across time and from across the World. Our children explore the musical elements through performance, composition and appraisal.
Music intent
At Compass Point Primary School, our music curriculum intends to inspire creativity and self-expression as well as encouraging our children to develop an appreciation for music. Our intent is to foster a lifelong love of music by exposing children to diverse musical experiences and igniting a passion for music. By listening and responding to different musical styles, finding their voices as singers and performers and as composers; all will enable them to become confident, reflective musicians.
The aims of our Music curriculum are to develop pupils who:
- Can sing and use their voices individually and in a group
- Create and compose music on their own and with others
- Use technology appropriately when composing
- Have opportunities to learn to play musical instruments
- Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated
- Listen to, review and evaluate the work of great composers and musicians from a range of historical periods, genres, cultures, styles and traditions
- Enjoy and have an appreciation of a range of different musical styles e.g. Classical, Jazz, Pop, Rock etc.
- Use and understand musical language and include musical features in their own work
- Make judgements about the quality of music
- Have opportunities to take part in performances
Implementation
- We have a dedicated music space within the school, with a multitude of instruments for both whole class and small group teaching.
- We belong to the “Handful of Harmonies” choir, where local schools come together and perform songs that they have learnt
- We have regular opportunities for children to perform through school plays as well as to sing in the local community
- We listen to different types of music as part of our assembly programme, we have been to Bristol music venues to enjoy performances
- We love to sing and teach our children a wide range of songs as well in class and in our regular singing assembly
- We belong to the wider Bristol music community and use the “Bristol Plays Music - Charanga” scheme of work to plan and structure our music lessons.
- We use the Bristol Plays Music organisation to commission whole school instrument tuition including violin, keyboard, ukulele.
- Different opportunities for extra curricular clubs eg guitar club, music composition club and Music technology club
The music curriculum ensures pupils sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in classroom activities as well as weekly singing assemblies, various concerts and performances. The elements of music are taught in classroom lessons so that children are able to use the language of music to have meaningful discussions. In the classroom children learn how to play various untuned and tuned instruments. Children are taught to devise and read their own musical scores using basic music notation. They also learn how to compose focussing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music.
The interrelated dimensions of music
Listening and Appraising music
Impact
Our children are given many opportunities to perform and this increases self-confidence, interaction with and awareness of others. Our music curriculum encourages a love and appreciation of music which we hope will be lifelong. We appreciate the healing benefits of music and encourage children to get a better connection with music and how it makes them feel.We know that listening to and playing music can improve mood, increase memory and knowledge retention as well as help develop fine and gross motor skills.'
