Music

At Rivers Primary Academy, we are musicians!

We want our pupils to love music and we inspire them to aspire to be music producers, songwriters, composers or performers. We want our pupils to remember their music lessons and embrace the musical opportunities they are presented with. Elements of our music curriculum form part of the WAT ASPIRE curriculum: Our Aspirations are our possibilities - believe you can and you will!

Intent:

Our curriculum develops pupils’ aspirations so that they strive to be the best that they can be. We carefully plan the subject knowledge, skills and vocabulary, coupled with specific Aspire character virtues and learner skills so that our pupils have the tools to be successful in learning and in life. Our music curriculum promotes curiosity and a love and thirst for learning. Pupils will develop the interrelated skills of performing, composing and appreciating and listening to music through the exploration of cultural diversity within music.  We aim to enrich our pupils’ time in our school with memorable experiences.

Implementation:

The music curriculum has been carefully built and the learning opportunities and assessment milestones for each year group crafted to ensure progression and repetition in terms of embedding key learning, knowledge and skills, mapped out with threshold concepts. Our key principles are revisiting key knowledge and questions that drive thinking. Long term plans have been developed with other schools within Windsor Academy Trust. Knowledge organisers identify key knowledge and help pupils with remembering more.  Pupils are given the opportunity to learn to play a range of tuned and untuned instruments. Specialist teachers deliver weekly whole class instrumental teaching. Curriculum enrichment opportunities such as Samba, Steel drums and African drum workshops are also provided. Opportunities to perform to different audiences are also given. Historical and influential musicians are explored and celebrated across the school fostering a greater understanding of music and the variety of genres there are. 

Impact:

We aim for all of our children to leave Rivers Primary equipped with the music skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at KS3 and for life as an adult in the wider world. We use formative assessment in every music lesson to assess both knowledge and skills. Cumulative quizzes inform the teacher about the impact of the current learning and demonstrate pupils’ retention of previous knowledge. Key Assessment Task (KATs) allow the teacher to see how the knowledge and skills gained can be translated into understanding. These will be centred around a deep-thinking question, known as the ‘Big Question’ and will always be explicitly linked to the threshold concept/s. Reviews in music include any work scrutinies, learning walks, pupil and staff voice. All of this information is gathered and reviewed. It is used to inform further curriculum developments and provision is adapted accordingly.

At Rivers Primary Academy, we Inspire to Aspire!