“Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.”

The National Curriculum

At St Andrew’s C of E Primary school our intent is to provide our children with a creative, captivating and challenging curriculum that equips them for today and tomorrow. Our Music curriculum will enable children to develop their creativity as they develop their love of music.

At St Andrew’s school our children are given opportunities to learn to play musical instruments, to sing and to perform and to listen to music across a range of styles and traditions. Our children are able to sing in our Young Voices Choir in Key Stage 2, performing in the Young Voices Concerts and are able to sing and perform in our Cool Choir in Key Stage 1. Our children sing and perform in Nativity Performances and assemblies throughout the school year, both in school and at St Andrew’s Church.

Foundation Stage

In our Foundation Stage we give our children opportunities to be imaginative as they explore their ideas mainly within the, “Expressive Art and Design,” area of learning. Our children explore the different sounds they can make with musical instruments and use their imaginative ideas to create music. They develop their voices as they sing nursery rhymes and songs related to our topics. They use their imagination as they create ideas and actions for our favourite songs. Our children enjoy moving to music with our, ‘Dough Disco,’ activities and through a range of action songs.

Key Stage 1

In Key Stage 1 our curriculum provides opportunities for our children to develop their singing skills and to use their voices expressively as they sing and perform songs and rhymes. Our children build on their previous knowledge as they play tuned and untuned instruments to create and perform music. Our children create music by exploring and combining different sounds as they use the inter-related dimensions of music: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture and structure. Throughout our Key Stage 1 curriculum children will listen to  music across a range of styles and traditions.

Key Stage 2

Throughout Key Stage 2 our children will sing and play instruments with increasing confidence, control and expression. There are opportunities for the children to attend a recorder club throughout the year. Our curriculum enables the children to develop their understanding of musical composition. The children build on previous skills as they compose using the inter-related dimensions of music. Our children develop their use and understanding of musical notations as they compose and play instruments. Our curriculum allows the children to build on their appreciation of music from different traditions, composers and musicians, as they develop an understanding of the history of music.