Music

Music is an integral part of the ICARE values we have here at Duke Street. It allows children to find ways of expressing themselves and escape everyday life. Every child in school has the opportunity to learn 3 different musical instruments before leaving Duke Street which gives them the skills to be able to read or compose a piece of music. They are also encouraged to use these instruments as part of a solo or ensemble performance. This gives the children the tools to aspire and achieve something outside of their comfort zone, may this be in music performing in Duke Streets Got Talent or in another subject or learning a skill that they haven’t tried before. This also develops their resilience in learning a musical instrument.

Music is also part of everyday life at Duke Street, allowing the children to feel part of a community. The children are exposed to music from different cultures. We play classical music, sing songs linked to celebration festivals, perform songs as part of school plays and sing many songs from different genres during our music lessons. We even have a Karaoke club!

The children learn different instruments at Duke Street and have whole class tuition from a qualified music specialist for in key stage 2. In addition taught musical instruments, children are given the opportunity to explore both tuned and untuned instruments in their weekly music lessons:

  • Year 1 and 2: Recorder
  • Year 3 and 4: Ukulele
  • Year 5 and 6: Guitar

When the children are not with the music specialist, they will be following the Charanga music scheme which will be taught by class teachers.

To view our Music Policy, please view our Policies Page.

National Curriculum Objectives Aims

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.

Key Stage 1 Objectives

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 Objectives

Pupils should be taught to:

  • Play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expressionimprovise 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.
  • 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.

At Duke Street we Follow The Charanga Musical School Scheme

The Charanga Musical School Scheme Consists of Units of Work That All Contain the Following Elements:

Listening and Appraising

  • Musical Activities – creating and exploring.
  • Performing.
  • All activities are based around a song.
  • Games embed the Interrelated Dimensions of Music through repetition.
  • Singing is at the heart of all the musical learning.
  • Playing instruments with the song to be learnt – tuned/un-tuned classroom percussion and an option to play any band instrument. A sound-before-symbol approach is used but scores are provided as an understanding of notation is introduced to the children.
  • Improvising with the song using voices and instruments occurs in some Units of Work.
  • Composing with the song using instruments occurs in some Units of Work.