Music Intent:

At Adlington Primary School, we aim to engage, motivate and inspire pupils to develop a love of music. We promote our children's talent as musicians increasing their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. 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. (The National Curriculum)

Music teaching at Adlington Primary School aims to follow the requirements of the National Curriculum for Music; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum; ensuring the progressive development of musical concepts, knowledge and skills.  Music is a unique way of communicating, it is a vehicle for personal expression, and it can play an important part in personal and cognitive development.

Music at Adlington Primary School aims to reflect the culture and society that we live in, and so the teaching and learning of music enables children to better understand the world they live in. Music also plays an important part in helping children to feel part of a community and so we provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop their skills, to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms, and to begin to make judgements about the quality of music. 

The national curriculum provides an outline of core knowledge around which Adlington Primary School develops exciting and stimulating themes and lessons to promote the development of pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills as part of the wider school Curriculum.

Our Music curriculum is based on our mission statement 'Aspire, Persevere, Succeed'.

The aims of our Music curriculum are to develop pupils who:

• Can sing and use their voices.
• Create and compose music on their own and with others.
• Use technology appropriately.
• Progress to the next level of musical excellence. 
• Have opportunities to learn a musical instrument.
• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated.
• Understand the work of great composers and musicians.
• Enjoy and have an appreciation for music.
• Use musical language.
• Make judgements about the quality of music.
• Have opportunities to play a wide variety of instruments.
• Take part in performances.
• Perform and share a range of musical styles.
• Listen, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions.
• Have opportunities to study a range of musical styles and genres, e.g. Jazz, Hip Hop, Pop, Rock etc.

Implementation:

At Adlington Primary School we recognise that musical teaching and learning is not neat or linear and that children do not learn in straight lines. Repeating a musical skill doesn’t mean their progress is slowing down or their development is moving backwards, it enables pupils to reinforce musical understanding in order to improve the quality of their musicianship.

Our Music Progression Model 2019-20 allows children to develop new music skills and concepts whilst also revisiting and embedding established musical skills and concepts. At Adlington we recognise that achieving mastery in Music means gaining both a deeper understanding of musical skills and concepts whilst also learning something new. The progression document ensures the curriculum is covered and the skills, knowledge and vocabulary taught are progressive from year group to year group.

Music is a foundation subject in the National Curriculum and the Music curriculum at Adlington Primary School is in line with the 2014 Primary National Curriculum in England requirements for KS1, KS2 and the Foundation stage curriculum. Music teaching will deliver the requirements of the National Curriculum through half termly topics and teachers plan lessons based on the Charanga scheme of work, ensuring consistency and progression throughout the school.

We recognise that music is a specialist subject and not all teachers are musical specialists. We follow and adapt the Charanga scheme of work and this enables clear coverage of the music curriculum whilst also providing support and CPD for less confident teachers to deliver lessons. 

Each unit of work has an on-going musical learning focus and a unit specific focus to enable previous musical skills to be embedded.  Music lessons usually follow a specific learning sequence:

• Listen and Appraise
• Musical Activities (including pulse and rhythm)
• Singing and Voice
• Playing instruments
• Composition
• Perform and Share

Our progression model also follows the same learning sequence to ensure all interrelated elements of music are covered and implemented.

Music teaching at Adlington Primary School is practical and engaging. A variety of teaching approaches and activities are provided based on teacher judgement and pupil ability. Lessons typically involve a combination of the following; games, songs, challenges, listening to music and discussing music, playing a range of musical instruments, performing back, finding the pulse and composing music using notation sheets. Open ended tasks are provided that can have a variety of responses and teachers also differentiate activities using the Charanga Bronze, Silver and Gold challenges. Our mastery curriculum provides further enrichment opportunities throughout the year (see below) for children who show extensive aptitude in music.

Performance is at the heart of musical teaching and learning at Adlington and all pupils participate in a key stage performance. Pupils also take part in Harvest assemblies, singing assemblies and pupils in KS2 perform at our annual carol concert at St Paul's Church. Pupils who would like to are encouraged to perform in solo performances. Parents are warmly welcomed to watch all of these performances. Furthermore, pupils from EYFS to year 6  experience opportunities to see live performances which often include live theatre and musical concerts performed by professional musicians.

At Adlington primary School music teaching is not only focused on performance but also providing our pupils with an understanding and appreciation for music. Through our music lessons children study a wide range of musical styles and genres from a range of musical periods. Some of the musical styles and genres we study are as follows: Mamma Mia, The Beatles, Jazz, Rap, Reggae, Motown, Michael Jackson, Hip Hop, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

Key Stage Two children are offered the opportunity to learn a musical instrument via the Lancashire Music Service. Parent who would like to take up this offer liaise directly with the music service and make payment through the 'Direct Payment Scheme'.  Instruments in the past have included: guitar, piano, keyboard and violin. Pupils that learn a musical instrument have the opportunity to sit examinations and perform at our carol concert and in out of school venues.

At Adlington primary school we buy into the 'Wider Opportunities' scheme from the Lancashire Music Service. Children in year three learn to play the Samba drums and Djembe in year five. These lessons take place weekly throughout the year. Our EYFS and KS1 children undertake a six week singing project delivered by the music service and this culminates in a music concert prior to breaking up for the Easter break.

Each year our school offers our KS2 children the opportunity to join our Young Voices Choir. The children work hard to learn the songs and dance moves throughout the autumn term and then enjoy the opportunity of performing with a live band and over seven thousand children. It is also an excellent opportunity for our children to enjoy a live band including famous artists.

Impact:

Our music Curriculum is of a high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression and build on and embed current skills. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills in the different musical components and alike other subjects discreet vocabulary progression also form part of the units of work.

Assessment and recording

Feedback to pupils about their own progress in Music aims to help children learn by being positive and constructive. Feedback is always given whilst a task is being carried out through discussion between child and teacher. Formative assessment is also used to guide the progress of individual pupils in Music. It involves identifying each child's progress in each aspect of the subject, determining what each child has learned and what therefore should be the next stage in his/her learning.

Formative assessment is mostly carried out informally by teachers in the course of their teaching. Suitable tasks for assessment include:

• Small group discussions in the context of a practical task.

 • Specific tasks for individual pupils.

• Individual discussions in which children are encouraged to appraise their own work and progress.

 • Peer and Self-assessment. Records of progress in music are recorded through video and photographs (parental consent for photographs is given) these are stored on the school server, showing evidence and progress of the children’s learning.

The Lancashire assessment documents are also used to help teachers identify progress and curriculum coverage. Assessments are recorded termly in the school’s tracking system.

In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Pupil discussions and interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Governor monitoring.
• Moderation staff meetings with opportunities for dialogue between teachers.
• Annual reporting and tracking of standards across the curriculum.
• Photo evidence and images of the pupils practical learning.
• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes.
• Dedicated music leader time.

The impact of our music curriculum is also measured in the uptake of our music extra-curricular clubs and uptake of additional music 1:1 teaching.