Intent

At St Clement's, children gain a firm understanding of what music is through their participation in individual, group and whole class listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing activities, across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions, and musical genres. We aim to develop a curiosity and enjoyment of music, as well as an understanding and acceptance of all types of music, and a respect for the role that music may play in a 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, and become confident performers.

We recognise that there are some children who wish to further develop their love of music, and we provide additional opportunities within school, which we hope will continue into their adult life. 

Implementation

In whole class teaching, we follow Kapow Primary Music scheme which takes a holistic approach to music, in which the individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences:

• Performing

• Listening

• Composing

• The history of music

• The inter-related dimensions of music

Over the course of each unit of work, children will be taught how to sing fluently and expressively and play tuned and untuned instruments accurately and with control. They will learn to recognise and name the interrelated dimensions of music - pitch, duration, tempo, timbre, structure, texture and dynamics - and use these expressively in their own improvisations and compositions. 

The Kapow Primary scheme follows the spiral curriculum model where previous skills and knowledge are returned to and built upon. Children progress in terms of tackling more complex tasks and doing more simple tasks better, as well as developing other aspects of musicality, such as reading music notation, developing an understanding of music history and the interrelated elements of music. 

Music is taught in school weekly. Children in KS1 have the opportunity to learn to play the glockenspiel and KS2 pupils learn to play the ukulele taught by a specialist music teacher and this supports reading music notation and use of tempo and dynamics.

Year 3 pupils participate in the Surrey Primary Music Festival, which is held at Dorking Halls, and Year 5 pupils perform at the Epsom Music Festival at the Epsom Playhouse.