Music
Our vision is that music is fully embedded in every aspect of school life, not just as a subject but as a joyful thread running through our whole community.
Our aspiration is for every child to grow as confident, expressive musicians with a strong foundation in musicianship, creativity and enjoyment.
We hope that every child will leave St. Georges with a life-long love of music – whether as a performer, a listener, a creator or all three.
Through playing, singing, creating and performing music, children develop confidence, communication skills, thinking and creative skills and improve their emotional well-being. Children will find that music is enjoyable and relaxing and helps them to express themselves. Through rehearsing and performing to an audience, children learn the importance of determination, resilience, hard-work and bravery. These experiences support our whole-school aim of helping children to develop in ‘Mind, Body and Spirit’.
Music lessons are lively and interactive and aim to foster a passion for music in children of all abilities. The curriculum intent is delivered using the Charanga Music scheme resource. Links are made where possible to other aspects of the curriculum. During music lessons, children participate in singing, tuned and untuned percussion work, composition, and listening to live and recorded music. All children are taught the skills to be able to compose using musical instruments. When the children are in Year 3 and 4, musical notation is taught through the learning and playing of recorders and ukuleles and children across school are taught correct musical terminology e.g. rhythm, melody, pitch, dynamics.
Singing is a highly important part of our music curriculum. Weekly singing assemblies take place to teach children how to sing with a sense of pitch and melody. They are taught how to warm up their voices, sing in rounds and harmony, and build up a repertoire of songs. These assemblies are delivered by a music specialist from Somerset Music, who also leads our school choir. Our choir meet each week to practise and perform at various events annually. All children have opportunities to perform at events across the year such as whole school church services, festivals and celebrations in school as well as class assemblies and performances.
During their time at St. George’s, children have opportunities to learn to play a range of musical instruments. Whole Class Ensemble Tuition (WCET) is delivered in partnership with Somerset Music. During their time in Key Stage 2, children receive three terms of ukulele tuition and one term of samba drumming, giving them the opportunity to develop performance skills, musical understanding and confidence using a range of instruments and music styles. In Year 3, children also learn the recorder with their class teacher, helping to build early notation, listening and ensemble skills. Glockenspiels are used across year groups during curriculum music lessons to support the development of rhythm, pitch, notation reading and practical musicianship.
