Music Intent:

At Holway, we use the Charanga Music Scheme across the school. Our scheme of work fulfils the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum (2014). 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 intention is first and foremost to help children to feel that they are musical, and to develop a life-long love of music. Each class teacher uses the scheme and adapts it to ensure every child can access and enjoy music within our school. 

We explore music through the inter-related dimensions of music: performing, listening, composing, the history of music. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers, and listeners. Children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and un-tuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music.

Charanga’s Music scheme has been designed as a spiral curriculum with the following key principles in mind:

• Cyclical: Pupils return to the same skills and knowledge again and again during their time in primary school.

• Increasing depth: Each time a skill or area of knowledge is revisited it, is covered with greater depth.

• Prior knowledge: Upon returning to a skill, prior knowledge is utilised so pupils can build upon previous foundations, rather than starting again.

Our curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world and across generations, thereby helping them to develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music that they listen to and teaching them to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities.

As well as this, Year 4 have the opportunity to learn a brass instrument for the duration of the year. Additionally, we offer many extra-curricular activities and after school clubs to supplement our musical offer including choir and musical theatre club, which perform across the school, as well as out in the community.

Music in EYFS at Holway

In Early Years, the Charanga scheme is followed with weekly opportunities for music and performance through development towards expressive arts and design and being creative. This is accompanied by regular phonological awareness activities and daily rhyme time, with nursery rhymes, songs and stories running cohesively throughout the curriculum. Links within continuous provision allow children to develop a love for music making and performance, through singing, exploring and playing tuned and untuned instruments.