Music
Music at Woodnook
At Woodnook, we aim to encourage and inspire pupils’ creativity and self-expression as musicians. We want our music lessons to be engaging, fun and inspiring to foster a life-long love of music. By listening and responding to different musical styles, our teaching enables pupils to become confident, reflective musicians. Our teaching is built on listening to different elements of music, learning important vocabulary and developing an understanding of how music has changed throughout history. We use Charanga to support the teaching of music and this feeds directly into our long term plan.
EYFS
Music in EYFS falls within the Early Learning Goals for ‘Communication and Language’ and ‘Being Imaginative and Expressive’. Children are taught music as a discrete subject once a week. They also cover a range of songs, rhymes and musical activities across the curriculum. Children have daily access to our outdoor music area which promotes the use of open-ended resources and the opportunity to make ‘big’ noises and ‘big’ movements.
By the end of EYFS children should be able to:
- 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.
- Listen attentively and respond to what they hear with relevant questions, comments and actions (during whole class and small group interactions).
Key Stage 1
Children in KS1 have a weekly music lesson. Lessons focus on developing listening skills, awareness of rhythm, singing, playing and performance skills. All pupils are encouraged to move their body in response to the music they hear. Instruments used within lessons include a range of percussion instruments and glockenspiels as our tuned instrument. Specific vocabulary is taught in a sequential manner.
By the end of KS1 children should be able 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.
Key Stage 2
Children in KS2 have a weekly music lesson. Lessons focus on developing precise listening and evaluation skills, a more detailed awareness of rhythm, singing in tune as part of a smaller group, reading music while playing the glockenspiel and performance skills. Through this, pupils are able to improvise their own music. All pupils are encouraged to share their thoughts and opinions in response to the music they hear. Instruments used within lessons include a range of percussion instruments and glockenspiels as our tuned instrument. Specific vocabulary continues to be developed.
By the end of Key Stage 2 children should be able 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 music 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.
Performance Opportunities
All pupils in EYFS and KS1 learn and perform a set of songs as part of the Christmas play. This is performed to parents and all pupils in KS2.
Each class throughout the year performs an end of unit piece of music / song to the other classes during a Key Stage assembly at the end of a half term.
Pupils with SEND
Children with additional needs are supported when accessing each lesson according to their need. When learning a tuned instrument, they might access chime bars rather than a glockenspiel or might only learn to play a specific section of the music rather than the whole piece.
In September 2022, we had a visit from Stewart and Chris from Travelling by Tuba. We thoroughly enjoyed the whole school assembly where we learned about different instruments and music from around the world. Then children in Year 1-Year 6 took part in a workshop where they learned to play some instruments and created a piece of music. Take a look at the photos below.
