We are aspiring musicians!  

At Southville Primary school, we aspire to be musicians. Our music curriculum will develop our children’s understanding and enjoyment of music, and help them find their musical voice. We will enable them to respond critically to the music they hear and to explore different ways of making music themselves.  We will help them build the foundations for a lifelong appreciation of, and participation in, the joy and power of making music.

We will do this by:

• Singing regularly with our children.
• Teaching them to play a variety of instruments, including glockenspiel, ukulele, recorder and a windband instrument.  
• Developing their skills in composing their own music and collaborating with others creatively.  
• Introducing them to musical notation and technical vocabulary as part of their musical toolkit.   
• Building their confidence and skills in performing to others, through a number of events such as winter productions, choir performances, recitals and end of year shows.  
• Providing opportunities to listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions.  
• Experiencing performances by a broad range of musicians, including local artists and the children's own peers, as well as the works of great composers and musicians.

Implementation

Charanga

The school uses the Charanga Musical Scheme which provides teachers with week-by-week lesson support for each year group in the school. It is ideal for specialist and non-specialist teachers and provides lesson plans, assessment, clear progression, and engaging and exciting whiteboard resources to support every lesson. The scheme supports all the requirements of the national curriculum. adopts an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning.

Children are actively involved in using and developing their singing voices, using body percussion and whole body actions, and learning to handle and play classroom instruments effectively to create and express their own and others’ music. There is an instrument focus in each year group. Through a range of whole class, group and individual activities, children have opportunities to explore sounds, listen actively, compose and perform.  Learning is based on the following concepts:

•  Listening and Appraising
•  Musical Activities — creating and exploring 
•  Singing and Performing 

The scheme adopts an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning. The interrelated dimensions of music weave through the units to encourage the development of musical skills as the learning progresses through listening and appraising, differing musical activities (including creating and exploring) and performing.

Bristol Beacon​

We complement the use of Charanga with resources, planning and delivery from Bristol Beacon. A range of peripatetic lessons are offered through this service, including: guitar, keyboard, cello and drums.

Additional Opportunities

Music is taught as a discrete subject but also across the curriculum. The school subscribes to “Sing Up”, where teachers can search for songs that link to curriculum areas, including maths, science, history and geography.  All children enjoy a weekly singing assembly which often include songs from the resource. The school has a choir work which work with Handfuls of Harmony- children learn and perform songs from a range of cultures, and include modern pop songs as well as more traditional music.  Performances, such as Christmas plays and nativities and end of year shows, demonstrate that music is important to the life of the school.