Our music curriculum aims to provide all pupils with a high-quality music education which engages and inspires children to develop a life-long love of music, increase their self-confidence, creativity, and imagination, and provide opportunities for self-expression and a sense of personal achievement. We offer opportunities for children to develop their talents in all aspects of music including composition, singing and appreciation.

The primary aim of our music curriculum is to help every child develop a sense of themselves as a musician. We strive to instil confidence, creativity, and a life-long love of music through engaging, inclusive, and inspiring musical experiences. We focus on developing the skills, knowledge and understanding that children need in order to become confident performers, composers, and listeners. Our curriculum introduces children to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching children to respect and appreciate the music of all traditions and communities. Children will develop the musical skills of singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music. They will develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music that they listen to and learn how music can be written down.

Through music, our curriculum helps children develop transferable skills such as team-working, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and presentation and performance skills. These skills are vital to children’s development as learners and have a wider application in their general lives outside and beyond school. Kapow Primary’s Music scheme of work enables pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets outlined in the National curriculum and the aims of the scheme align with those in the National curriculum.

Kapow Primary’s Music scheme takes a holistic approach to music, in which the individual strands below are woven together to create engaging and enriching learning experiences:

Each termly unit combines these strands within a cross-curricular topic designed to capture pupils’ imagination and encourage them to explore music enthusiastically. Over the course of the scheme, 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, demonstrate 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. Our National curriculum coverage shows which of our units cover each of the National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the strands. Our Progression of knowledge and skills shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage. 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 understanding and knowledge of the history of music, staff, and other musical notations, the interrelated dimensions of music and more.

In each lesson, pupils will actively participate in musical activities drawn from a range of styles and traditions, developing their musical skills and their understanding of how music works. Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work as well as improvisation and teacher-led performances. Lessons are ‘hands-on’ and incorporate movement and dance elements, as well as making cross curricular links with other areas of learning. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils in building a foundation of factual knowledge by encouraging recall of key facts and vocabulary. Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to be able to deliver a highly effective and robust music curriculum. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD, aiding teachers in their own acquisition of musical skills and knowledge. Further CPD opportunities can also be found via webinars with our music subject specialists. Kapow has been created with the understanding that many teachers do not feel confident delivering the music curriculum and every effort has been made to ensure that they feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.

Our Music Development Plan details how the profile of music is raised in our school, extra-curricular enrichment activities and the wider musical opportunities that the children have access to.

The impact of our music curriculum is constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives and at the end of each unit there is often a performance element where teachers can make a summative assessment of pupils’ learning. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils by providing a highly visual record of the key learning from the unit, encouraging recall of practical skills, key knowledge and vocabulary. After the implementation of our music curriculum, pupils should leave KS1 equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their KS2 Junior school education and to be able to enjoy and appreciate music throughout their lives. The expected impact of following our music curriculum is that that the children will:

✓ Be confident performers, composers and listeners and will be able to express themselves musically at and beyond school.

✓ Show an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and will understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social, and historical contexts in which it is developed.

✓ Begin to understand that music can be written down in different ways to support performing and composing activities.

✓ Demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and be able to identify their own personal musical preferences.

✓ Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Music.