Music
Music at Prince Rock
Music at Prince Rock
Intent
Our music curriculum encourages children to immerse themselves in musical learning that engages, inspires, challenges, provokes, exhilarates and liberates.
Our music curriculum will:
- Provide a curriculum that engages, inspires and challenges children as well as revisiting knowledge and skills they have learnt previously.
- Equip our children with the knowledge and skills to experiment and create their own performances and music.
- Provide the knowledge, experiences and cultural capital necessary to become educated citizens and to succeed in life.
- Provide children with the opportunity to learn to play instruments.
- Encourage a love of music and a desire to learn more.
The teaching of music at Prince Rock encourages children to engage through regular, structured skills and knowledge-based lessons, providing an opportunity for pupils to develop their musicality, as well as drawing on new skills. With singing as our key driver, our children learn a wide variety of knowledge through song and musical performances, which further enhances their ability to remember more and deepen their understanding. At Prince Rock, the children attend a weekly singing assembly where they learn a range of songs that are mostly linked to social, moral and cultural themes. In addition, our weekly singing club gives children the opportunity to demonstrate their passion for singing, sing with other children across the school and learn how to prepare for a performance.
The National Curriculum is adhered to as a minimum expectation of design and delivery. We believe that music is a universal language and are committed to providing equal opportunities for all children including those who are disadvantaged and with SEND and EAL. We fully encourage and enable our children to take creative risks and immerse themselves intellectually, emotionally, physically and kinaesthetically in their musical learning experience. Through the interrelated dimensions of music (pulse, pitch, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, timbre, structure, texture and notation), our children are able to develop their creativity in a well-managed and safe environment. At Prince Rock, children are able to do this in our well-equipped music room.
Music performance and composition play an integral part in developing our young musicians. Collaboratively, children develop their social skills and well-being through the sharing of ideas, skills, singing and playing instruments. At Prince Rock, there are many opportunities for our children to learn specific instrumental skills which include First Access keyboard tuition in Year 4 and small group tuition. Furthermore, we fully encourage and enable opportunities for collaborative performances across the LAT, providing enrichment for children.
Our music philosophy encourages children to assess and critique a wide variety of musical genres and composers through listening to the music of others. By developing the skills of responding to music, pupils are able to use those skills to effectively assess and improve upon their own work and that of their peers. Prince Rock’s ‘Composer of the Term’ aims to immerse the children in the works of composers across different genres of music, explaining their significance in history.
Music is an important catalyst to learning a wider variety of knowledge across the entire curriculum. At Prince Rock, we utilise music as not only a subject within its own right but also as an enhancer for other subjects.
Implementation
In the EYFS, children will learn to sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs and move in time with the pulse. They will listen to and talk about a wide range of music, expressing their feelings and responses. Children will explore instrumental sounds in order to create their own music and will be encouraged to share and perform their musical ideas with others.
In Key Stage 1, the children will learn to use their voices to sing expressively through learning songs and chants. They will begin to develop an awareness of the different interrelated dimensions of music through listening to a range of live and recorded music, and exploring and playing tuned and untuned instruments. Children will contribute to group and class compositions and begin to record their ideas using graphic notation. Children are encouraged to share and celebrate their learning through regular performance opportunities.
In Key Stage 2, the children will further develop their knowledge and understanding of the different interrelated dimensions of music through listening to a wide range of music from different genres and identifying their characteristics. By the end of Key Stage 2, children will sing and perform a broad range of songs, observing rhythm, phrasing, accurate pitching and appropriate singing style. All children in Key Stage 2 will learn to play an instrument through First Access (whole-class tuition) and will learn how to read and record staff notation. Music technology will be used as one way to record and share their compositional work. There will be frequent informal opportunities to perform across each unit to help prepare for performances to a wider audience.
Impact
Progression in music is supported through the use of techniques such as retrieval quizzes. Questions based on key vocabulary, notation and aural recall are just some of the activities included in this. These techniques, combined with responsive teaching which adapts learning in light of children’s knowledge, understanding and misconceptions, ensure that the children understand and remember key knowledge. In addition, regular opportunities to listen and appraise music will help the children to demonstrate their understanding of the interrelated dimensions of music and further develop their oracy skills. An electronic music portfolio is used to keep a record of the children’s outcomes at the end of each term (or unit). This will include recordings of children performing as a class, in small groups or solo performances.
At the end of the year, an age-related assessment is given based on the work seen across the year. Children’s attainment is then shared with parents/carers in their annual report.
Enrichment
Singing Assemblies and Composer of the Term
In addition to their music lesson, the children attend a weekly singing assembly within their key stage. Miss Brake and Miss Brimacombe teach the children to sing songs linked to social, moral and cultural themes, making links to the interrelated dimensions of music to further embed the children’s understanding.
We also use this opportunity to collectively introduce each year group’s ‘Composer of the Term’. A composer or performer is assigned to help ensure that, by the end of KS2, pupils will have listened to a range of Western Classical Music, Popular Music and Traditional Music from around the world.
Class teachers will then listen to the music of their composer/performer back in class throughout the term.
“Music is one of the central building blocks of any culture and
the shared knowledge of music is crucial cultural capital in understanding where we came from and our place in the world.“
(Model Music Curriculum, 2021)
Clubs and Tuition
Prince Rock’s Singing Club (Y3-6) meet every Thursday. We sing a range of songs, from musicals to the latest hits.
Children in Year 5 and Year 6 are offered the opportunity to take up ukulele or keyboard tuition with a tutor from Plymouth Music Education Hub. Lessons are offered in small groups or one-to-one tuition. Please see the office staff to find out more.
Performance Opportunities
At Prince Rock, we look forward to sharing and celebrating our music wherever possible.
We regularly take part in the following events:
- Lord Mayor’s Carol service (LAT collaboration)
- Christmas Church service
- Annual Christmas performance to our local care homes
- Christmas play/nativity
- Harvest Festival assembly
- First Access keyboard performance (Year 4)
- Class assemblies
Recent Events
- Travelling By Tuba came to visit our Year 3, KS1 and Foundation Stage children. They put on a spectacular, interactive show based on music from around the world.
- Musicians from Plymouth Music Education Hub delivered an amazing assembly for our KS2 children where they demonstrated how to play different instruments and performed as a brass quartet.
- In November 2022, we collaborated with children from Salisbury Road and Mount Street, performing in a concert for Children in Need with The Sir Joshua Reynolds Choir.
- Children from Prince Rock, Salisbury Road, Mount Street and Woodfield formed a LAT choir and performed together at the Lord Mayor's Carol Service.
Follow the link below to listen to our performance. (LAT choir - All Over the Hills)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL11uvXka5Wja3Kp198vG2XKzeW89b_gIf
In December 2023, our keyboard teacher playing the clarinet and saxophone for children across the school.
Lipson Community Y8 Band performed for the children.
The choir sang at Plymouth Central Library and at Astor Court.
The staff team joined in the singing at the carol service.
In the spring term, each class performed music for their parents as part of their class assemblies.
Music Matrix
