Intent

At Mission Grove Primary School, we are passionate about and committed to providing a music curriculum that engages and inspires children to develop a love of music, as well as their talents as musicians. Children gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions, and musical genres. We are committed to developing a curiosity for the subject, as well as an understanding and acceptance of the validity and importance of all types of music, and an unbiased respect for the role that music may wish to be expressed in any person’s life. We are committed to ensuring children understand the value and importance of music in the wider community and are able to use their musical skills, knowledge, and experiences to involve themselves in music, in a variety of different contexts.

Implementation

The music curriculum ensures children sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. Through the musical program Charanga, teachers are able to produce inclusive lessons for all children to access the musical curriculum in a fun and engaging way, further promoting a love of learning. Teachers deliver music following the Charanga programme, designed specifically for the teaching of music in primary schools. Charanga lessons are planned in sequences to provide children with the opportunities to review, remember, deepen and apply their understanding. The elements of music are taught in classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to dissect it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. In the classroom children learn how to play the recorder and a variety of percussion instruments. Playing various instruments enables children to use a range of methods to create notes, as well as how to read basic music notation. They also learn how to compose, focusing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. Composing or performing using body percussion and vocal sounds is also part of the curriculum, which develops the understanding of musical elements without the added complexity of an instrument

The Year 4s receive weekly guitar lessons and each term ends with a concert for them to share what they have been working on. Each Friday we run an enrichment hour whereby children select activities on a half termly basis. Many are musically based, for example, animation, music appreciation, Guitar, Singing, Read music, bollywood dance, singing, piano, street dance. We offer children lunchtime and afterschool clubs that range from art club to circus skills. We have peripatetic violin and guitar teachers in school weekly for a number of children and have also recently introduced Rock Steady to the school who provide fun and inclusive rock and pop band lessons.

Impact

Using our termly planning and curriculum overviews; our lessons are planned to enable children to have every opportunity to build upon their prior knowledge and consolidate their understanding.

The impact of our Music curriculum is that the majority of children, in our school, are able to;

• Children will achieve age related expectations in music at the end of their cohort year.
• Children will retain knowledge that is pertinent to music.
• Children will have the opportunity to express their creativity in the form of music.

The engaging and practical nature of the curriculum will promote a love of music and singing through:

• The participation in wider musical activities.
• Opportunities to perform to wider audiences to develop self-confidence and improve well-being.

Music enables children to develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to children individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world. Children are able to enjoy music in as many ways as they choose – either as listener, creator or performer. Children have the opportunity to discuss and share their own thoughts, opinions and ideas, acknowledging and respecting that these may vary and that this is positive. They can dissect music and comprehend its parts. They can sing and feel a pulse. At Mission Grove Primary School children are provided with opportunities beyond the National Curriculum to further and support their understanding. These include having visitors with a musical talent, peripatetic musical tutoring, visiting concerts and school productions. External interests and talents are also encouraged and showcased in class and assembly, ensuring that everyone is challenged regardless of previous musical experience. Children have an understanding of how to further develop skills less known to them, should they ever develop an interest in their lives.

Teachers assess children’s work in Music by observing them work during lessons. Verbal feedback is offered throughout the lesson, whilst not compromising a child’s creativity. Formative assessment is embedded into each lesson in the form of evaluating their own work and of others, discussions and plenaries. Knowledge and progress will be recorded and uploaded in the evidence portal on Charanga that will follow each class through the school. It will highlight and document the children’s learning, as well as the progress the children have made. This will be kept alongside individual assessment logs maintained by the music teacher, in order to inform assessment at various points across the academic year (Termly teacher judgement using Insights).

Mission Grove choir have participated in Young Voices concerts at the O2 arena for many years.

https://www.youngvoices.co.uk/

We offer violin and guitar lessons through The Walthamstow Music Service and also offer instrumental lessons through Rock Steady.

https://www.rocksteadymusicschool.com/info-for-schools

Charanga

At Mission Grove Primary School, we follow the Charanga Musical Scheme which is an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning. Charanga Musical School Units of Work enable children to understand musical concepts through a repetition-based approach to learning. Learning about the same musical concept through different musical activities enables a more secure, deeper learning and mastery of musical skills.

Each Unit of Work comprises the strands of musical learning which correspond with the national curriculum for music:

 1. Listening and Appraising

2. Musical Activities

a. Warm-up Games

b. Optional Flexible Games

c. Singing

d. Playing instruments

e. Improvisation

f. Composition

3. Performing

To see Music in action at Mission Grove, click on the tabs on the right-hand side. 

You can download our Music Road Map and Year Group Progression at the bottom of this page.