Music

‘A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their selfconfidence, creativity and sense of achievement.’ Dept of Education, National Curriculum.

At Whiteways our aim is to provide a music curriculum which will enable each child to reach their full potential in music, encourage children to enjoy singing, composing and performing and provide children with the opportunity to perform in front of an audience both within and outside school. It has been well documented that music and the arts are extremely beneficial in promoting well-being and a positive attitude to learning. We want our music to support the children’s healthy social development, a sense of discipline and their musical curiosity.

At Whiteways want pupils to appreciate and respect a wide range of musical traditions and genres. Through their participation in music making we want our children to focus on and improve their listening and recall skills, improve their creative vocabulary and boost their reading and poetry skills. We want them to communicate confidently using the emotional language of music.

We use the Charanga scheme of work for our music teaching which adopts an ‘integrated, practical, exploratory and child led approach to musical learning’. Each unit of music includes teaching opportunities for: listening and appraising, musical activities (warm-up games, optional flexible games, singing, playing instruments, improvisation, composition) and performing. The Charanga scheme enables pupils to understand musical concepts through a repetition based, structured approach to learning in order to develop a secure understanding of musical skills.