‘Music education has a significant impact on children’s development. It not only brings joy but plays a critical role in shaping cognitive, emotional, and social skills.’ (North Tyneside Music Education Hub).

Intent

At Crowthorne C of E School, we believe it is important to 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.

Our Key aims are:

• That through regular music appreciation, children will be able to talk about different pieces of Music from a variety of genres and cultures.
• For children to be able to talk about how different pieces of music make them feel and describe it using the inter related dimensions of music.
• To increase children’s confidence through opportunities to perform, through singing and composing and playing instruments.
• For children to develop socially through opportunities to compose and perform as part of an ensemble. 

Implementation

Our Music curriculum is based on the Sing Up scheme of work, which provides a solid foundation to deliver a creative and engaging programme through high-quality classroom music activity, from Reception to Year 6. We cover a broad range of repertoire, and musical traditions. The scheme supports a fully integrated approach to musical development, connecting the interrelated stands of singing, playing, improvising, composing, listening and appraising.

In Year 3 children learn to play the recorder, we are fortunate to have a music Teacher from Berkshire Music Trust to deliver a flute project to Year 4, and in Year 5 children learn to play the glockenspiel. Some children go on to have lessons in school with Berkshire Music Trust in recorder, flute, clarinet, or piano.

Some children, across the school, also participate in Rock Steady sessions, where they get to play instruments, or sing, as part of a band. Children in KS2 also visit Wellington Prep school where staff deliver a unit of work. 

As well as weekly music lessons, the children have regular singing assemblies led by our music lead, and there are always opportunities to be part of our school choir who rehearse weekly. Performances include taking the choir on tour  to perform in local venues at Christmas time, performing at Wellington College as part of the Crowthorne Carnival celebrations, and singing in the 'School Junior Music Festival' at the Hexagon Theatre in Reading.

Reception put on a Christmas performance each year and KS1 also show off their singing and acting skills in their annual Christmas production. Every other year, all children in KS2 have the opportunity to perform in our popular ‘West End style’ KS2 production.

‘I must thank you for letting me watch KS2’s production of ‘Olivia’.  It was absolutely amazing! I was lost in the story from start to finish and thought how brilliant the show was.  I cannot single individual performances out as I thought all the cast worked well together and supported each other.  There certainly was a range of talent shown.‘

Impact

Teachers assess children's abilities in Music through observing them in lessons and then making teacher judgements at the end of units of learning. The subject is monitored through lesson drop-ins and pupil voice.

At Crowthorne C of E School, we want the impact of our Music curriculum to be that:

• Children have experienced a wide range of musical styles.
• Children have had the opportunity to play a variety of instruments.
• Children have developed a variety of skills that enable them to participate in music activities successfully and are ready to engage in the KS3 Music curriculum.
• Children will be able to record their compositions using non-standard and some standard notation and read simple pieces of Music.
• Children have a positive attitude to Music and understand the importance of it in terms of shaping cognitive, emotional, and social skills as well as developing their cultural capital.