Music

Music at Weston

At Weston Village Primary School, Music gives children opportunities to listen, sing, play, compose and perform.

We want every child to develop musical knowledge and practical confidence while experiencing the enjoyment of making music with others.

Children learn how music is organised through rhythm, pitch, tempo, dynamics, timbre, texture and structure. They encounter music from a wide range of times, places, traditions and styles and learn to listen with increasing attention and understanding.

Our aim is for pupils to leave Weston seeing themselves as people who can participate in, understand and enjoy music.

What Children Learn

Our Music curriculum develops several closely connected areas:

• singing

• listening and responding

• playing instruments

• composing and improvising

• performing

• musical notation

• understanding the interrelated dimensions of music.

These are revisited over time so that children can use increasing musical knowledge and control.

Beat, Rhythm and Pitch

Secure understanding of pulse, rhythm and pitch provides an important foundation for later music-making.

In Year 1, children learn the difference between rhythm and pitch patterns, move and clap to a steady beat, respond to changes in tempo and copy and perform short repeating rhythms.

As pupils progress, they encounter increasingly complex rhythmic and melodic material and learn to use these elements when singing, playing and composing.

Singing

Singing is an important part of musical learning throughout school.

Children learn to listen carefully to a musical model, sing with increasing accuracy and control and perform as part of a group.

As their confidence develops, pupils learn to respond to features such as:

pitch, by singing accurately at different heights;

tempo, by responding to and controlling speed;

dynamics, by varying volume;

and phrasing and expression, by considering how a song should sound rather than simply reproducing the notes.

Singing also helps pupils develop listening, memory and ensemble awareness.

Playing and Performing

Children have regular opportunities to make music using voices, body percussion and instruments.

They learn to:

• keep a steady pulse

• copy and perform rhythmic and melodic patterns

• play with increasing accuracy and control

• listen to other performers

• maintain their own part within a group

• rehearse and improve a performance

• perform to an audience where appropriate.

The emphasis is not simply on playing the correct notes. Children learn that successful ensemble performance requires listening, timing, cooperation and musical expression.

Composing and Improvising

Children learn that music can be created as well as performed.

They experiment with sounds and musical ideas before making increasingly deliberate choices about rhythm, pitch, instrumentation and structure.

Improvisation allows pupils to create music within given parameters, while composition gives them opportunities to develop, organise and refine ideas.

As children progress, they draw more consciously on their knowledge of musical features and styles when creating their own music.

Musical Notation

Children progressively encounter different ways of representing music.

Early notation may include visual, graphic or simple rhythmic representations. As pupils' knowledge develops, they encounter increasingly formal notation and learn to connect what they see, hear and perform.

The aim is for notation to support practical musicianship rather than become an isolated written exercise.

Listening and Musical Understanding

Listening is an active part of the curriculum.

Children encounter music from different periods, genres, traditions and cultures and learn to talk about what they hear using increasingly precise vocabulary.

The current curriculum provides a deliberately broad musical diet. Key Stage 2 units include jazz, African music, disco, blues, film music, wartime songs, Caribbean music, Latin American music, Bollywood and music from different decades.

Children consider musical features and how composers and performers use them to create particular effects.

The Interrelated Dimensions of Music

Throughout the curriculum, pupils increasingly understand and use the interrelated dimensions of music:

pulse, rhythm, pitch, tempo, dynamics, timbre, texture, structure and notation.

These are not taught as disconnected definitions. Children encounter them practically through listening, singing, performing and composing.

As their musical knowledge grows, pupils become increasingly able to recognise these features, describe them and use them purposefully in their own music-making.

Music in Reception

The foundations of musical learning begin in Reception through Expressive Arts and Design.

Children sing familiar and new songs, explore sound, respond physically to music and experiment with instruments and body percussion.

They begin to hear and reproduce patterns, respond to pulse and changes in music and experience the enjoyment of making music together.

This provides the foundations for the more structured Music curriculum that begins in Year 1.

How Learning Develops

In Key Stage 1, pupils establish essential foundations in pulse, rhythm, pitch, tempo, singing, listening and simple instrumental performance. They begin to create musical ideas and experience a range of songs and styles. Year 1, for example, includes units such as Moving and Grooving, Fairy Tales and Traditional Songs, An Orchestra Adventure and Sounds are all Around.

In Lower Key Stage 2, pupils develop greater control as performers and composers while broadening their musical experience. The curriculum includes areas such as celebration songs, rap, rock and roll, disco, jazz, African music and traditional music from the United Kingdom.

In Upper Key Stage 2, pupils encounter an increasingly diverse range of styles and contexts, including blues, music for film, the development of music over time, wartime music, Caribbean and Latin American music, Bollywood and music from the 1980s and 1990s.

Across these experiences, pupils are expected to listen, perform and create with increasing independence and musical understanding.

How We Teach Music

Music is practical, and children need to hear, see and experience musical ideas.

Our whole-school teaching routines support this.

I → We → You enables teachers to model a rhythm, melody, instrumental technique or musical response before children rehearse together and then apply their learning more independently.

Scaffold → Fade means visual notation, backing tracks, rhythmic prompts, demonstrations or simplified parts can support pupils initially and are reduced as musical security grows.

Retrieval, little and often helps pupils revisit important terminology, rhythmic patterns and musical knowledge.

Words & Visuals helps make musical vocabulary, notation and structures accessible.

Repeated rehearsal has a particularly important role in Music. Children improve not simply through explanation but through careful listening, purposeful repetition and responsive feedback.

Inclusion in Music

Music is for every child.

Teachers make adaptations so that pupils can participate meaningfully in listening, singing, playing, composing and performance.

These might include:

• visual or enlarged notation

• alternative instruments or beaters

• simplified or adapted instrumental parts

• repeated modelling

• additional rehearsal

• reducing the physical demands of a task

• technology to support access

• alternative ways of contributing to an ensemble.

The aim is to preserve the important musical learning while enabling pupils to take an active and increasingly independent part.

Assessment

Assessment happens naturally through musical activity.

Teachers listen to and observe pupils as they sing, play, compose, rehearse and discuss music.

They consider how well pupils can:

• maintain pulse and rhythm

• control pitch and musical elements

• perform accurately and expressively

• listen and respond to others

• use taught musical vocabulary

• create and develop musical ideas

• use notation appropriately

• apply previous learning in new musical contexts.

Recordings or written notation may sometimes provide useful evidence, but assessment in Music should not depend on producing large amounts of written work.

Music Beyond the Classroom

Music is an important part of wider school life at Weston.

Our wider musical offer includes choir, opportunities for instrumental tuition and performances across the school year.

We also provide whole-class instrumental experience as part of the curriculum, giving children an opportunity to develop practical musicianship together and perform what they have learned.

Where pupils develop a particular interest in music, families can also access opportunities for further instrumental learning.

Our Music Curriculum

The document below shows how Music is organised and developed from Year 1 to Year 6.