Rationale:

Music at Burradon Community Primary School takes its aim from part of our core values:

Care and respect yourself, other people, our school and the wider world.

Stay safe, make sensible choices and do things that make you happy.

Intent:

   Our aims in teaching music are to:  

• Develop their performance skills through learning to play tuned and untuned instruments, singing a variety of songs and rehearsing and performing with others.
• Develop their composing skills through creating musical patterns and exploring and organising sounds and learning to record these in a variety of ways.
• Learn to analyse and compare sounds, explore ideas and make improvements to their work, building on their appraising skills.
• Learn to listen with increased concentration to internalise and recall sounds

Implementation: Teaching and Learning

• Music is taught in all classes from Foundation Stage to Year 6. 
• We aim to develop children’s knowledge, skills and understanding in music.
• We use a wide range of teaching styles to cater for a variety of learners at Burradon, such as using actions and dance, whole class work, small group work and individual work. 
• Staff are working closely together to ensure music progression is evident throughout the school and children build on what they already have been taught in previous years. 
• We provide enrichment opportunities to our pupils so they can enjoy and experience new music genres and, where possible, live performances.  We are working with music specialist, Charlotte Laws, who works for the Local Authority, to provide some CPD opportunities for teaching music and using the Charanga programme we have bought into, to support our music teaching and the children's learning, particularly after 2 unsettled years during COVID-19.  Year 4 and Year 5 classes have been working with Charlotte during Autumn term:

“We draw grids on our whiteboards and do our own notes on them like quavers and crotchets.” Year 5 pupil

“We’ve been learning dynamics, pitch, pulse, rhythm  and tempo.” Year 4 pupil

“I've really enjoyed it and Charlotte is great. It's really helped me in terms of reading music and knowing what the different notes are, how many beats etc. Also I realised how easy it is for children to compose music using their bodies. The children seem to have loved it!” Year 5 teacher.

The children take part in a singing/hymn assembly every week.  Mrs Baty, the subject leader, takes the assembly every Wednesday and is currently focussing on traditional hymns and for the children to get used to singing as a whole school once again.
"I like it when we do Christmas songs, they're really fun!" Y4 pupil

"I enjoy listening to the music at the start, it's sometimes really calm." Y2 pupil.

A school choir club has provided opportunities in the past for keen singers to be part of a fun, active group which often leads to a performance on a larger scale such as 'Angels of the North' concert at The Sage, Gateshead or a Vocal Celebration within the Local Authority.

We follow Charanga as our main music scheme. We have chosen to follow the model music curriculum so staff can focus on the skills required in order for the children to make the most progress, given that the children have not sang and played instruments during COVID.