Music at Hartwell
Our Vision:
Music is a unique way of communicating that can inspire and motivate children. It reflects culture and society and so the teaching and learning of music enables children to appreciate the world in which they live. Music brings people together and helps children to feel part of a community. It lays the foundations for a life-long skill that the children can take with them to secondary school and beyond.
At Hartwell, our vision is that music is an enjoyable experience for all. Singing lies at the heart of our music curriculum and we aim to develop the children’s ability to sing in tune and with other people. Our ambition is that children develop the confidence to make music together and to perform in front of an audience. We aim to foster creativity through regular composition activities using a range of musical instruments.
Please click here to see SMSC in Music
Please click here to see our Music School Development Plan 2021-2022
The Music Curriculum:
The objectives for Music are set out in the National Curriculum:
Key Stage 1
Pupils should be taught to:
- use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants
- play tuned and untuned instruments musically
- listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music.
- experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.
Key Stage 2
Pupils should be taught to:
- play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression
- improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music
- listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory
- use and understand staff and other musical notations
- appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians
- develop an understanding of the history of music.
Charanga
At Hartwell, we use the Charanga Musical School Scheme to deliver our music lessons. The Scheme supports all the requirements of the national curriculum. We have chosen this scheme because it provides an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning. Lessons are structured as follows:
- Listen and appraise
- Musical activities (games, singing, playing instruments, improvising and composing)
- Perform and share
From Reception to Year 6, the learning consists of six half-termly units of work. Each unit is focused around one song. Here is a link to our units of work
All musical learning is built around the interrelated dimensions of music: pulse, rhythm, pitch, tempo, dynamics, timbre, texture, structure and notation. These dimensions are at the centre of all the learning.
The musical progression through KS1 and KS2 is demonstrated in the documents below. The instrumental work is differentiated allowing children to move through the relevant parts as they need to.
Vocabulary
At Hartwell, we believe it is important to teach children musical vocabulary so they can speak confidently about the music they listen to. The document below lists key words for each year group:
Year 4
Year 4 take part in the NMPAT first access brass project. After this project, pupils are given the opportunity to continue learning their instrument through small group lessons taught by an NMPAT specialist.
Extra-Curricular Activities
We believe that music enriches the lives of people, and so we wish to involve as many children as possible in musical activities. The clubs we are currently running are:
- Choir (KS2)
- Music Club (instrumental)
We facilitate performance opportunities throughout the year for groups of children to perform to a live audience. These include the Music Recital, Young Voices and Year 4 brass assemblies. The children also work towards a performance within their Key Stage (EYFS/KS1-Christmas, LKS2-Easter, UKS2-End of year).
Music at Hartwell
