Queens’ Federation: Music Subject Statement

Intent

At the Queens’ Federation we aim to foster ‘Learning for Life.’

We will provide a rich, relevant and inspirational curriculum that promotes a lifelong love of learning and equips our pupils with the key knowledge and understanding, skills and personal qualities that they will need to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Our curriculum is designed to be relevant to our children and is linked to the context of our school and the local community.

At the Queens’ Federation, our aim is to provide a music curriculum which will enable each pupil to reach their full potential in music. All pupils will have access to and will be encouraged to develop an enjoyment of music. Pupils will be encouraged to express their ideas and feelings through music and develop their awareness and understanding of musical dimensions through singing, composing, analysing and evaluating a wide variety of music. Music will also provide opportunities to develop teamwork skills and to perform in front of an audience both within and outside of school.

Implementation

In KS1 and KS2, our music curriculum is centered around ‘Charanga,’ a music based scheme.  The scheme supports the teaching of the key elements of music (pulse, rhythm, pitch, dynamics, tempo, timbre, structure and texture) and provides pupils with a language of music. This enables them to analyse and evaluate music and experiment with, create and select sounds using the interrelated elements of music. Pupils sing a wide variety of music, listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high quality recorded music and have the opportunity to learn musical instruments. Key musical skills are also incorporated into weekly singing assemblies, performances both within and outside of school, the learning of instruments and participation in extra-curricular musical ensembles. All of these opportunities enable pupils to develop their understanding of the significance of music and it place in the wider world.

We view assessment as a holistic process, which takes place in every lesson through observation of, in questioning and in conversation with pupils and in the production of written outcomes. Music assessment criteria set out the key knowledge and skills that a pupil should achieve at the end of each unit of work.

Impact

Our pupils will leave the Queens’ Federation with an awareness of different musical traditions, styles and genres. Pupils will be able to enjoy music either as a listener, creator or performer. They will be able to sing and demonstrate their musical skills and knowledge and are in a position to further develop their skills as they move into Key Stage 3. Pupil outcomes evidence a broad and balanced music curriculum and at the end of each year, pupils achieve age related expectations and retain the knowledge and skills learnt from each unit of work.

Yearly Overview

Music in EYFS

In the Foundation Stage we encourage children to develop an interest in music as part of ‘Expressive Arts and Design’. Opportunities to explore sounds and instruments are available both in the classrooms and outdoor areas, so that children can experiment and have fun with music either with adults or as part of their play. We sing together every day. A wide variety of different kinds of music are provided for children to listen to and talk about – we welcome in parents to come in and share their musical skills with us! 

For more information please click on the link to view our Music Policy on our Policies page.

Extra-curricular opportunities

We run a Year 1,2,3 lunchtime choir, as well as a Year 4,5,6 choir in the Autumn term and Summer term. We have enjoyed performing a number of times in front of different audiences! At the Summer Fete this year, the Year 4-6 choir enjoyed singing ‘New King’ by Banji Alexander with some energetic dance moves. The Year 1-3 choir did a very polished performance of a lively Taylor Swift song! You might have come to listen to us and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Assemblies

We having weekly singing assemblies in KS1 and KS2. During singing assembly, we sing solfege scales using the hand signs to warm up our voices and then sing along with Sing Up, a website which shows us the musical notation as we sing. Our current favourites to sing are ‘Try Everything’ from Zootopia the film and ‘Symphony’ by Clean Bandit. We love practising body percussion, too. Every term, we have an Assembly Concert in which auditioned instrumentalists from across the school have an opportunity to perform. This is alongside Choir performances and children that have been put forward by their peripatetic music teachers. These assemblies are a highlight of our Music calendar at Queen Edith!

 

A song for Queen Edith

In June 2022 the Year 3 children at Queen Edith worked with a folk music band called ‘The Young ‘uns’ to write and compose their own school song.  This involved the children researching their local history and area and devising verses and choruses to reflect this.  They based their rhythm and timbre upon the principles of old sea shanties and used the experience of the ‘Young’uns’ to inspire their creativity.  Below you are able to hear their song that will remain a legacy at Queen Edith.  We hope that you enjoy listening to it and are encouraged to sing along:

Nursery

Children in Nursery enjoy dancing and exploring musical instruments. They can choose to perform songs and dances in our outdoor performing area. We sing songs each day and children enjoy listening to music that accompanies our Talk for Writing books.

Year 2

Year 2 have been composing and performing simple rhythm patterns using stick notation. Our confidence clapping each other’s rhythm patterns is wonderful! We really enjoy our Music lessons!

Year 3

Year 3 have been learning to play the recorder in Music this term. We have decided that having our Music lessons outside works best so we don’t disturb other children, because they tend to be quite loud lessons! We are working towards playing in unison, in time with the music.

Year 4 

Marching Band

4.1 enjoyed playing Turkish March on the recorder. It was hard to keep the beat with our marching feet as well as play the tune correctly, but we managed it!

KS2 Singing Assembly

KS2 are fine tuning Solfege scale vocal warm ups, and have been enjoying singing ‘Firework’ by Katy Perry as it approaches Bonfire Night!

 

Christmas Performance Practice

The Year 4, 5, 6 choir are busy practising for their Christmas performances!

KS2 Choir visit to Lichfield Road Community Hall: 7^th December 2022

The KS2 choir had a very jolly afternoon visiting an audience of local elderly residents this afternoon. We brought all of our festive cheer and our beautiful singing voices and performed a number of Christmas songs. Thank you for bringing your smiles and beautiful singing voices, Year 4, 5 and 6! A very upbeat afternoon!

December 2022 -Year 6 Playing Glockenspiels

Our new unit in Music has started and we’ve been learning to play the glockenspiels with our PPA teachers. We’ve all revised our knowledge of crotchets, crotchet rests and minims, playing some tunes and discussing the importance of maintaining a steady pulse.

Academic Year 2021-2022

Junk Orchestra

Quotes from Year 5 today after our afternoon in a junk instrument band:

“I really enjoyed listening to other people playing the bass drums and playing them myself. I loved playing with the flip-flops and improvising with the sound they made. It was cool what the drums were made of!”

“At the start I enjoyed the dancing. I loved conducting the junk band at the end!”

“I enjoyed watching Miss Santocchini and Miss Rosier looking a bit silly on the bass and the drums.”

“I enjoyed being a DJ even though I wasn’t quite sure at first what I was doing! I changed the tempo of the music.”

“I liked watching everyone else using the fire extinguisher caps as a pan instrument and listening to the sound they made.”