“Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high-quality music education should 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. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.” (DFE 2013)

At Hampton Dene, we strive to develop “the whole child”. We recognise the impact that music can have across all areas of learning, and encourage pupils to let us share in their success.

Aims

As a school, our aims are

• For pupils to develop enjoyment and interest in music
• To give all children the opportunity to learn to play an instrument.
• To be fully inclusive and encourage all children to “have a go” whatever their level of musical ability
• For pupils to learn to sing collectively and to develop their performance skills.
• For pupils to use information and communication technology (ICT) in their music studies

Objectives

To develop pupils’ enjoyment and interest in music

• to develop a knowledge and appreciation of the contribution made by famous musicians and composers.
• to listen to music from a wide variety of genres, cultures and historical periods.

To give all children the opportunity to learn a musical instrument

• to take part in the Wider Opportunities scheme.
• to facilitate instrumental lessons with peripatetic teachers as required.
• to provide pupils with opportunities to share their learning and achievements.

To be fully inclusive and encourage all children to “have a go” whatever their level of musical ability

• to give all children the opportunity to join the school choir.
• to develop children’s confidence to participate in instrument lessons.  

For pupils to learn to sing collectively and to develop their performance skills

• to have weekly whole school singing assemblies.
• to use songs and rhymes to support learning across the curriculum. 
• to encourage pupils to take part in concerts and performances, using rehearsals to improve their technique.

To develop pupils’ use of information and communication technology (ICT) in their music studies

• to give pupils opportunities to use ICT to record their work and to store results for future retrieval throughout their music studies
• to give pupils the chance to obtain information using safe searching on the internet, and other data bases.

Subject content

• Key stage 1

Pupils should be taught 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
• Pupils should be taught to:
• sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.
• 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.

The school uses an online scheme “charanga”. This covers all aspects of the curriculum and has a huge range of differentiated resources.

Wider Opportunities

The scheme begins in Year 3 and children are taught as a whole class to play an instrument – usually ukulele or recorder. They learn to accompany simple tunes, begin to read music notation, and use correct musical terminology.

This is in preparation for Year 4 when a specialist teacher from Encore Enterprises, the Hereford Music Service, delivers weekly lessons for a year on an instrument of our choice. So far we have studied the clarinet and toots (a simpler version of the flute). Parents are invited to a concert to hear pieces that the children have been learning.

A number of children then choose to continue with the instrument, or to start another one when they move in to Year 5.

Beyond the classroom

Each year, Key Stage 1 stage a Nativity play involving singing and dancing,

and Key Stage 2 perform in a Christmas concert where they are able to showcase some of their skills. Years 5 and 6 also put on a “Leavers’ Show” at the end of the summer term.

The big event for the choir each year is the Young Voices concert in Birmingham. This is an unforgettable experience for the children: they have the chance to sing with 6000 children from around the country in a huge arena with some famous faces from the music industry.

We also do performances on a smaller scale in our local community, visiting churches and nursing homes to sing Christmas carols.

Our instrumentalists are offered the chance to play in assemblies and as part of a “Musical Afternoon” to which parents are invited. Currently, have a large range of instruments being learned – clarinet, flute, oboe, saxophone, guitar, ukulele, piano, keyboard, harp and even double bass!