Music Curriculum

Music at St. Anne's

A key element of the music curriculum at St. Anne's is use of the Charanga Musical School lessons which support all the requirements of the national curriculum.

In line with guidance from Ofsted, this scheme provides an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning.

As Ofsted have acknowledged: “We will not always know the learning outcomes.” so segregated learning objectives at the start of each lesson are not appropriate. Instead the interrelated dimensions of music weave through the units to encourage the development of musical skills as the learning progresses through listening and appraising, differing musical activities (including creating and exploring) and performing.

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

Listening and Appraising

Musical Activities

a. Warm-up Games

b. Optional Flexible Games

c. Singing

d. Playing instruments

e. Improvisation

f. Composition

Our children love using a set of glockenspiels, percussion and recorders to take part practically in classroom music lessons. We also have a professional music teacher who teaches small groups the keyboard.

Children also take part in a Key Stage 2 Hymn Practice once a week where they learn songs related to the Liturgical season and parts of the mass. This involves sing in harmony, in a round and sing and respond.

Music performance opportunities in school:

At Christmas:

• Key Stage 2 invite parents to join us for a Christmas Carol Concert to share reading s and carols
• Foundation Stage put on their own nativity with lots of singing and dancing
• KS1 produce a Christmas performance based around the Christmas story.

At Easter:

• Year 4 perform the Easter story with readings and songs with challenging rhythm and melody

In the summer term:

• Year 5 and 6 musical production where all children audition, sing solos or small groups, harmonies etc

• iRock concerts are performed to parents and the rest of the school each term.

Extra-curricular opportunities:

To support our music teaching and provide engaging opportunities for our pupils, we provide different opportunities:

• Year 6 Christmas Cracker
• Year 4 Composing linked to artwork at Walsall Gallery
• Drumming workshop
• Whole school Symphony Hall visit
• Drama club with performance and visits to London to watch musicals at the West End
• IRock tuition is offered at a cost to parents.

The documents below show the progression within each group and the links to the end of year expectations for children and end of Key Stage.

Charanga enables teachers to use a progressive and interrelated learning spiral which allows children to re-visit established musical skills and concepts to further their understanding of music. The associated documents highlight the spiral of learning each year group experiences and shows the interrelated dimensions of music that are used as the foundations of the music curriculum provided at St. Anne's.