Music
Intent
At West Ewell Primary School our aim is for children to develop an appreciation and enjoyment of music. Through our engaging curriculum children will gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing. We are committed to developing a curiosity for the subject, as well as an understanding and acceptance of all types of music. We aim to ensure that children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community and are given opportunities to perform to an audience and grow in confidence during their time at West Ewell.
Implementation
Our curriculum is centred around ‘Charanga’, a music-based scheme, in which the children develop a love of music, learn to sing and play instruments. They can gain a sense of achievement through the opportunities to learn new songs every week.
All children learn an instrument as part of a whole class -percussion, recorder and glockenspiel. They have an opportunity to develop an understanding of musical language and notation, which is built on as they progress up the school. Charanga provides great resources that enable the children to read music, compose and improvise.
We offer a mixture of teacher and experienced HLTA taught lessons. The school receives high-quality peripatetic lessons from outside agencies, including the opportunity to learn piano and guitar.
Impact
We expect to see the children having fun, becoming more self-confident, being exposed to different music genres and therefore widening their knowledge of the wider world.
They are given time to reflect and evaluate music, helping them to understand their individual tastes in music. There is a clear progression of skills and knowledge from Charanga, which builds upon each unit and each year. Children are given a variety of places to perform and showcase their skills/talents, in groups or solos and during whole class lessons.
Each child will have a ‘Musical Journey’, in the form of a book, from Reception to year 6. These will give the children memories that will go with them up through the school and allow them to see the impact music has had on their lives, increasing their skills and knowledge. This will include photos, a list of songs they have learnt during singing assemblies and termly reflections of vocabulary and skills learnt that unit. At the end of each unit the children will reflect on their learning using a traffic light system.
