Music at Foxes Piece

Intention

At Foxes Piece School, we believe that music is a powerful, unique form of communication that can change the way children feel, think and act. We use musical education throughout the school in order to enhance the aesthetic, cultural and social development and learning of the pupils as expressed in our school aims and values.

 Musical knowledge and skills are taught with consideration for the differing special educational needs making it an enjoyable art form that is accessible to all children. 

We aim to:                                                                 

• develop pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding through performing, composing, listening and appraising
• provide a broad base of musical stimuli from a variety of styles, times and cultures
• teach the children how to make judgments about music based on their personal tastes and learned language
• get the children actively involved in different forms of music, making and performing both as individuals and with others

Through learning a wide range of musical instruments and listening to music from various cultures, genres and times, we hope to give children a love of music that will follow them through their education and beyond.

Implementation

Music is a highly valued part of school life at Foxes Piece School.  The children enjoy their weekly lessons and actively take part in the extra-curricular opportunities provided by the school.

Our Music lessons are taught by our specialist teacher each week who ensures that every child has the opportunity to receive a broad and high-quality musical education experience provided through fun and challenging activities in a safe learning environment. Every child in the school learns a variety of tuned instruments as well as receiving strong vocal training, progressive theory skills and use of untuned percussion instruments as they move through school.

Year One – ocarina

Year Two – ocarina

Year Three – recorder

Year Four – ukulele

Year Five – guitar

Year Six - guitar

The children revisit skills regularly to allow them to retain their knowledge over time and enable them to build upon it in years to come.

The impact of the music curriculum at Foxes Piece School is measured through formative assessment taken place in each lesson as well as an end of term performance used as a summative assessment of the children’s retained knowledge and performance skills.

The children have access to a diverse curriculum which allows for repetition of skills and language that have allowed them to practise their skills and strengthen their knowledge. However, the children also receive high quality lessons that teach new skills and language that actively encourage them to make good progress and push the boundaries of their learning. Through listening to and comparing/analysing a variety of high quality recordings and performances, the children have learnt to build their own unique music tastes and have been given a deeper understanding of the skills, techniques and messages within a range of musical styles.

Pupil voice

Music is important to our children as is evidenced through our pupil voice survey.

When asked ‘Do you find our music lessons challenging?’ 100% of the children asked replied ‘yes’.

When asked ‘What do you enjoy about your music lessons?’ the children gave a variety answers including: ‘Learning new instruments’, ‘learning new chords’, ‘listening to new music’, ‘listening to artists that I haven’t heard of’, ‘learning to sing fun songs’ and ‘doing concerts to the parents and the rest of the school’.

All of the children agreed that even though they get a music lesson every week, they would like even more. This shows how much the children enjoy and value their music lessons in school.