Music at HMS

Intent:

At Hanborough Manor Primary School we aim to make music a creative, immersive and enjoyable learning experience. We encourage children to participate in a variety of musical experiences with the intention to build confidence, to encourage working collaboratively and to inspire creativity. Our teaching focuses on developing the children’s appreciation for rhythm and melody and gaining a deeper understanding of the history and context of music through singing, playing, composing, listening, improvising and performing. Through teaching music at Hanborough Manor Primary School, our priority is to teach and perfect the skills implemented by the National Curriculum for Music allowing for the development and progression in learning.

Implementation:

At HMS, we use Charanga as our scheme of work. The Charanga scheme provides teachers with week-by-week lesson support for each year group in the school and it is ideal for building up the confidence in both adults (by enhancing their subject knowledge) and children alike. It provides lesson plans, assessment, clear progression, and engaging and exciting whiteboard resources to support every lesson. The Scheme supports all the requirements of the national curriculum.

In line with the curriculum for music and guidance from Ofsted, this Scheme moves away from the previous levels and learning objective/outcome concepts to an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning. Charanga enables children to understand musical concepts through a repetition-based approach to learning. Learning about the same musical concept through different musical activities enables a more secure, deeper learning and mastery of musical skills.

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

1. Listening and Appraising
2. Musical Activities
3. Warm-up Games
4. Singing
5. Playing instruments
6. Improvisation
7. Composition
8. Performing

Every year, a group of children attend 'Festival of Voices' and all year groups are given opportunities to play a variety of instruments. Oxfordshire Music Service provides instrumentation lessons for year 5, this year focusing on the violin. Instrumental tuition is available for piano and guitar. ‘iRock’ provide our pupils with an electronic alternative to these instruments in the form of electric guitar, drums and keyboard. However, these are optional activities and are paid for on a termly basis by parents of participating children.  We encourage children to perform in assemblies, services, productions and concerts throughout the year.