Music at The Leys

Vision

For children to listen to and enjoy all kinds of music, whilst developing the confidence, creativity and ability to express themselves musically.
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Intent

Music is a foundation subject in the National Curriculum and in line with this curriculum we want to ensure all children;

• Perform, listen to and evaluate a wide range of live and recorded musical genres including those from different parts of the world and times in history,
• Learn to sing and play a variety of instruments independently and with peers,
• Compose their own music using voice, instruments and technology,
• Understand how music is created, produced and communicated through written notation.

Music development plan summary 2024-25: The Leys Primary School‍
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Implementation

Like many other Hertfordshire Schools, the staff teach music using the Charanga Scheme as our core resource. This online platform contains a rich collection of resources covering all curricular requirements of the National Curriculum for Music for students aged 5–16. It allows non specialist teachers to select from a range of individual songs and pieces when teaching their class to listen, sing, play and compose.

In Early Years, children have opportunities to make music during Child Initiated Play and become more aware of different sounds in the environment. They start to learn to listen to patterns and music, including repeating and creating them. They also sing songs and nursery rhymes, as part of a whole class activities and during assemblies. In Key Stage 1 children start to play both tuned and untuned instruments and learn about pulse, rhythm and pitch. They also have opportunities to compose using body percussion, voice and instruments and start to record these pieces using their own notation.

In Key Stage 2, children are introduced to traditional musical notation and play a wider range of instruments. In year 4 they learn to play the recorder and in year 5 the ukulele. They continue to develop their composition skills and are introduced to the idea of composing using computer software. Children throughout the school sing and we have a specialist singing teacher who works across the school on a Wednesday afternoon. Also as part of our Upper and Lower school assemblies we introduce a Musician/s of the Month and children learn about and listen to the music of famous musicians and composers.