Music Subject Intent

Intent

The intent of the St. John’s RC Primary music scheme is to help the children feel that they are musical, develop their skills and develop a life-long love of music. We pride ourselves on developing the knowledge and skills that children need to become composers, listeners and performers. Our broad curriculum allows our pupils to enjoy, respect and learn about music from all around the world, across generations, local music and music of different traditions.

All of our pupils at some point in their St. John’s journey, will have the opportunity to develop their musical skills of singing, listening, playing tuned and untuned instruments, improvising, responding to and composing music. Our lessons have a holistic approach which enables us to develop to the whole child. Our children learn various skills such as decision-making, presentation, problem-solving, creative thinking, team-working, leadership and performance skills.

We use resources from ‘Sing Up’ alongside our own planning, which enables our children to meet their end of key stage attainment targets and aims.

Implementation

Our music provision here at St. John’s is carefully planned to create enriching, engaging and kinaesthetic learning experiences for all of our children:

Performing
Listening and appraising
Composing / improvising

Our whole school music plan shows how the units give each child the opportunity to learn a broad range of skills in an engaging and fun way. It also covers all of the national curriculum attainment targets and shows the progression of each year group, enabling our pupils to build on their previously taught skills, challenging them to achieve the best of their ability.

We also provide music tuition on the following instruments:

Violin
Cello
Guitar
Brass
Piano

Our music provision does not stop inside the classroom, our children have the opportunity to watch and perform at various musical concerts across Manchester. Some of these include:

The Big Sing
Showcase
St. Patrick’s Day at the Irish World Heritage Centre
Young Voices
Loreto carol concert

We also give our children the opportunity to listen to and perform at our own musical events which include:

Carols by Candlelight
St. Patrick’s Day
Christmas Shows
Class assemblies
Year 6 Summer Show

Before and after school music enrichment activities include:

Irish band
Rock band
Pop choir
Ukulele group
Music Makers Y1-3
Guitar group

Impact

The expected impact of following the St John’s music scheme of work is that children will:

Be confident performers, composers and improvisers using both their voice and other pitched and unpitched instruments
Show appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world, and understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social and historical contexts in which it is developed
Have an awareness of how music can be written down, including staff and graphic notation
Demonstrate an enthusiasm for music that feeds into their own self-confidence and individual musical tastes and preferences
Be well prepared to continue their musical journeys at KS3