Music at Randwick

The National Curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:
• Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music
• Be taught to sing, create and compose music
• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated.  We want our children to develop a love of music through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions, and musical genres. Our aim is to develop 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. Whilst in school pupils will have access to a wide range of music making such as Young Voices, daily singing in worship and in various performances, 10 week’s tuition on brass instruments for all children in year 5 and 6 and learning to play the recorder as part of music teaching in KS1 and 2.  Music specialists offer one to one tuition on drums, keyboard and guitar throughout the year in school and the children perform in worship.

In EYFS the children perform songs and rhymes with others and learn to move in time with music, following the beat and rhythm.

The Charanga music curriculum ensures students sing, listen, compose, play, perform and evaluate. This is embedded in the classroom activities as well as concerts and performances and learning of instruments. The elements of music are taught in the classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to analyse and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and evaluated. Pupils have the opportunity to learn an instrument through whole class tuition. This provides the opportunity for them to understand the different principle of each method of creating notes, as well as how to read basic music notation. They also learn how to compose focussing 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 ‘scheme is used across the school to support learning.  Charanga provides a classroom-based, participatory and inclusive approach to music learning. Throughout the scheme, children are actively involved in using and developing their singing voices, using body percussion and whole body actions, and learning to handle and play classroom instruments effectively to create and express their own and others’ music. Through a range of whole class, group and individual activities, children have opportunities to explore sounds, listen actively, compose and perform.

Our ‘big ideas’ in music are:

·         Musical styles

·         Musical vocabulary

·         Tuned and un-tuned instruments

·         Voice

·         Pulse and rhythm

·         Musical composition

·         Musical performance