Music

Our music subject leader is Mrs Heather. 

For the 2023-24 academic year, we are continuing to embed our new music curriculum. We will be exploring ways to enhance and supplement this through our Forest School curriculum. 

We will also be working on our Music Development Plan (using the Model Music Curriculum as our guide). 

It is widely recognised that the power of music changes lives. At St Peter’s, our high-quality music curriculum provides our pupils with opportunities to express themselves, explore their creativity and persevere in their learning. They learn to sing, play an instrument and create music together. Whilst gaining key knowledge and developing their musical skills through the ongoing exploration of the concepts of listening, composing and performing, our children continually revisit the inter-related dimensions of music and learn about the history of music.

A: At St Peter’s our ambitious music curriculum inspires our children to recognise themselves as musicians through their music- making and aim high and persevere in their learning so that they are able to connect the development of their practical skills to their growing musical knowledge in order to become confident performers, composers and listeners.

S: Our pupils grow their musical knowledge through a well-planned, cohesive and carefully sequenced learning journey. They learn to sing and to use their voices to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument and use technology appropriately. The children understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture and structure and appropriate musical notations.

P:  Children are encouraged to reflect and build on their own musical interests and passions. Those that learn to play an instrument outside of the classroom are actively encouraged to share their extra-curricular learning with their peers. Our music curriculum sparks curiosity and engages and inspires children to develop a life-long love of music and their talent as musicians. In turn, this increases their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.  

I: We provide the children at St Peter’s to work both collaboratively and independently in their music-making. They develop their musical understanding of musical composition through investigative learning where they organize and manipulate ideas within musical structures and reproduce sounds from aural memory.

R: Through our music curriculum, children appreciate and understand a wide range of music drawn from different global traditions and from great composers and musicians. It introduces children to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching them to respect and appreciate the music of all cultures and communities. Through music, our curriculum helps children develop transferable skills that are vital to their development as learners and have a wider application to their general lives outside and beyond school.

E: Communication and self-expression is at the heart of our music curriculum.  By learning to listen critically, the children gain a deep understanding of the impact it can have on the listener. In turn, our pupils develop the craft of creating melodies and fashioning these into short melodies that can then be written down in standard or graphic notation. Indeed, our children learn to read and write notation in different forms. Our reading curriculum links effectively to music through the use of rhymes and songs with the younger children and of song lyrics as they grow older. A focus on language and the communication of words and feelings is central to our curriculum.