Music

At Windmill Hill Academy, we inspire pupils to be passionate lifelong learners by providing them with an ambitious broad and balanced curriculum, with the inclusion of a variety of enrichments, which will inspire them to have high aspirations. We inspire all learners to have strong desire to know or learn something and questioning their learning experiences to find out more. Throughout each year group and across the curriculum, pupils will make sustained progress, develop excellent knowledge, understanding and skills, regardless of their different starting points and backgrounds.
Overall curriculum
 
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. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.
 
 
Pedagogy
 
At Windmill Academy, we use the music scheme ‘Charanga’ to support the teaching of music. Teachers and pupils are able to access a wide diverse range of music through both time and place.
 
The Charanga Scheme provide our teachers with week-by-week lessons for each year group in their school. Charanga supports all the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum for Music in England in full. It allows teachers within school to adapt the learning to suit the class needs and aids teachers to teach whole class instrument lessons.
 
Charanga combines pedagogy, inspiring technology, great music and resources.
 
Music has links with history, dance, geography as well as SMSC, UNICEF Rights Respecting, and our school capabilities.
 
Teachers will help pupils with SEND to overcome any barriers to participating and learning and make any ‘reasonable adjustments’ needed to include pupils. To make lessons inclusive, teachers will anticipate what barriers to taking part and learning may pose for pupils with SEND. Some modifications or adjustments will be made or smaller steps to achieve the learning goal. Occasionally, pupils with SEND will have to work on different activities, or towards different learning intentions, from their peers.
 
In EYFS, all areas of learning and development are important and inter-connected. These are stipulated in the ‘Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage’. The most relevant statements for computing are taken from the following areas of learning:
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development
- Expressive Arts and Design 
 
 
 
Assessment
 
Assessment is regarded as an integral part of teaching and learning and is a continuous process. There are planned opportunities within the curriculum plan to revisit learning from the current year but also previous year groups.
 
It is the responsibility of the class teacher to assess all pupils in their class. This is mainly achieved through mini-plenaries, questioning, observation, recordings, performances, feedback from support staff and pupil self-assessment.
 
Teachers use feedback, recordings and performances to monitor attainment and progress, as well as analysing for gaps to plan follow up learning.
 
End of year assessment is reported on Itrack and features on the annual report to parents.
 
In EYFS, the level of development children should be expected to have attained by the end of the EYFS is defined by the early learning goals (ELGs). These are not used as a curriculum or in any way to limit the wide variety of rich experiences that are crucial to child development. Instead, the ELGs support teachers to make a holistic, best-fit judgement about a child’s development, and their readiness for year 1.
 
When assessing pupils with SEND, there will be carefully planned opportunities in order for them to demonstrate what they know and are able to do, using alternative means where necessary. Where a pupil is unable to use particular types of equipment, assessment of attainment will be based on understanding of the processes used as demonstrated through oral and written responses or, where possible, through the use of alternative equipment. The attainment of pupils who require adapted equipment, such as particular switches or voice-activated software, will be assessed using these specialist items.
 
The monitoring of the standards of children’s learning and the quality of learning and teaching of music is the shared responsibility of the Senior Leadership Team and the subject leader. The work of the subject leader also involves supporting colleagues in the teaching of music, being informed about current developments in the subject, and providing a strategic lead and direction for the subject in the school. A named member of the school governing body is briefed to overview the teaching of the curriculum in the school. 
 
 
Culture
 
At Windmill Academy, we believe that music is a vital part of the children’s education to enable them to express themselves through sound, to learn about the roots of genres of music and through a variety of styles through time. We aim to inspire and ignite a love for music, to listen to and appraise naturally in which these skills are promoted and discussed during the progressing lessons.
 
Alongside Charanga, Windmill strives to give the children opportunity to see live musicians perform. We have supported the Launceston Folk launch, The Pearl of Africa, Launceston Town band performance, Piano teacher performance and more during this coming year. We aim to have a variety of both voice and instruments as well as culture and a range of styles.
 
We aim to provide every pupil with the opportunity to learn a variety of instruments with the support from Cornwall’s music hub and utilising music specialists to give instrument lessons throughout the year e.g. Samba drumming, singing and string instruments. We believe that learning music will help benefit every pupil to listen and learn to analyses a variety of styles and composers both modern and through a variety of periods across the curriculum.
 
Pupils at Windmill Hill Academy are also given the opportunity to join in with in school, e.g. annual Christmas performances, and after school music and joining clubs that lead to performances within the community events. This includes: Samba band performances at the late night shopping in town or during Launceston Heritage days at the castle or school fete, song fest, trust music events. It gives the children a sense of belonging, building up to a performance, sense of accomplishment and giving back to the community.
 
Our role in school is to ensure that children are able to develop their relationship with music and learning instruments and are supported to reach their potential. We also have a role to ensure that children learn about the history of music and how to read basic notation, compose, improvise and control sound, appraise, evaluate and perform to an audience.
 
Teachers will help pupils with SEND to overcome any barriers to participating and learning and make any ‘reasonable adjustments’ needed to include pupils. To make lessons inclusive, teachers will anticipate what barriers to taking part and learning may pose for pupils with SEND. Some modifications or adjustments will be made or smaller steps to achieve the learning goal. Occasionally, pupils with SEND will have to work on different activities, or towards different learning intentions, from their peers. For some activities, there may need to be a ‘parallel’ activity for pupils with SEND, so that they can work towards the same learning intentions as their peers, but in a different way. The use of technology to assist learning can remove barrier and support with/adapted resources.
 
 
Systems
 
In EYFS, all areas of learning and development are important and inter-connected. These are stipulated in the ‘Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage’. The most relevant statements for music are taken from the following areas of learning:
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development
- Expressive Arts and Design
 
Reception
Communication and Language
- Listen carefully to rhymes and songs, paying attention to how they sound.
- Learn rhymes, poems and songs
 
Physical Development
- Combine different movements with ease and fluency.
 
Expressive Arts and Design
- Explore, use and refine a variety of artistic effects to express their ideas and feelings. 
- Return to and build on their previous learning, refining ideas and developing their ability to represent them.
- Create collaboratively, sharing ideas, resources and skills.
- Listen attentively, move to and talk about music, expressing their feelings and responses. 
- Sing in a group or on their own, increasingly matching the pitch and following the melody. 
- Explore and engage in music making and dance, performing solo or in groups.
 
ELG
Expressive Arts and Design
Being Imaginative and Expressive
- Sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs.
- Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others, and (when appropriate) try to move in time with music.
 
 
The national curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:

- perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians

- learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, use technology appropriately and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence

- understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

 

The KS1 music curriculum states that pupils should be taught to:

- use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes

- play tuned and untuned instruments musically

- listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music

- experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter related dimensions of music

 

The KS2 music curriculum states that pupils should be taught to:

- play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression

- improvise and compose for a range of purposes using the inter related dimensions of music

- listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory

- use and understand staff and other musical notations

- appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians

- develop an understanding of the history of music

 

In Key Stage 2, children should be taught to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should understand musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.  

 

Musical notation

As discussed above, the curriculum for KS2 involves school students learning about musical notation (the way that songs are written down so players know the duration and pitch of the notes they are meant to play). Each note is worth a certain amount of beats. Here are some music note names to explore with your class members:

  • Semibreve (whole note – four beats)
  • Minim (half note – two beats)
  • Crochet (quarter note – one beat)
  • Quaver (eighth note – half a beat)
  • Semiquaver (sixteenth note – quarter of a beat)
 
Windmill Hill Academy follows Cornwall Charanga music programme for music, which also allows teachers in school to tailor the programme to the needs of their pupils whilst still following statutory guidance.  
 
By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the skills and knowledge specified in the relevant programme of study.
 
See the knowledge and skills organiser for music which demonstrates the progression through the year groups.

 
 
Policies/key documents
 
- Whole School Long term horizontal curriculum map
- Charanga music scheme
- Music knowledge and Skills organiser
- Music skills progression
- EYFS Long term overview
- SEND Policy
 
All of these can be found on our website under the curriculum/policies tab.