Music

At Townfield Primary School, we aim to develop musicians, fostering a life long love of muisc. We will inspire creativity and self-expression encouraging pupils on their musical journey. We follow the statutory content of the national curriculum and Development Matters in EYFS for music. We use the Kapow music scheme as the basis of our music provision to deliver this curriculum. Through the three pillars of music, technical, constructive and expressive, the scheme focuses on developing knowledge and skills, ensuring incremental progression as children move through the school.  We are committed to delivering exciting lessons, which engage all our pupils.The Music curriculum is ambitious and, where required, pedagogy is adapted so that all pupils including disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND are on the same knowledge journey towards the same endpoints.

At our school, children have access to music through weekly lessons, including teaching from a music specialist fortnightly. Other enrichment opportunities include, after school clubs and performances in school. Furthermore, to enrich their 'cultural capital', some pupils visit a live orchestral performance at the Liverpool Philharmonic. Children also have the opportunity to enjoy and experiment with music during weekly forest sessions through song and using musical instruments. 

In lessons, we focus on the knowledge and skills of musical theory, performing, notation and composing and evaluating using tuned and untuned instruments. Children develop confidence and become more adept at working effectively with others, sharing their ideas, negotiating and finding creative solutions. Knowledge and skills are constantly revisited and refreshed to ensure that they become embedded. To support them in this, we prioritise the teaching and practising of key subject vocabulary, as it is explicitly taught.

We have created endpoints for each year to show what journey the pupils are on. This includes what they should know, what they should be able to do and where their learning is going. These are assessed throughout each unit. As the children revisit each strand of learning, either in the same year or in subsequent years, their teachers will know what prior learning should have taken place. These endpoints have been created to ensure a meaningful progression of skills across the school. We endeavour to present children with music from a wide range of musical genres.

For further information on our curriculum intent, implementation and impact, please see our curriculum page. 

See below the Music curriculum overview for KS1 and KS2.

 

The Music curriculum is set out in the Music End Points document.

 

See below for examples of the Music curriculum at Townfield:

Autumn Term

Nursery 

         In this topic, children will:

• Listen with increasing attention to sounds
• Know what ‘sing’ means.
• Know and use terms ‘loud’ and ‘quiet’
• Name some musical instruments e.g. ‘claves’, ‘shaker’, ‘drum’ ’triangle’, ‘bells’, ‘keyboard’
• Learn entire songs, including; Humpty dumpty, Jack and Jill, Twinkle twinkle little star, London Bridge is falling down, I’m a little teapot, If you’re happy and you know it, Hey diddle diddle, I hear thunder, Mary Mary quite contrary, Little Bo Peep, The big ship sails, 12345 Once I caught a fish alive, 5 little speckled frogs, Bingo.

       

Reception

Autumn 1 - Exploring Sounds

In this topic, children will:

• Explore how they can use their voice and bodies to make sounds, experiment with tempo and dynamic when playing instruments, identify sounds in the environment and differentiate between them.
• Know and use terms - fast/slow and high/low.
• Listen attentively, move to and talk about music expressing their feelings and responses.

   

Autumn 2 - Celebration Music

In this topic, children will:

• Learn about the music from a range of cultural and religious celebrations, including Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwankzaa and Christmas.
• Respond to music through movement altering movements to reflect the tempo, dynamics or pitch
• Know that there are different kinds of music across the globe

 

Year 1 

Autumn 1 - All about me (pulse and rhythm)

In this topic children will:

• Identify the difference between the pulse and rhythm of a song.
• Consolidate their understanding of these concepts through listening and performing activities.

Autumn 2 - Animals Classical Music (dynamics and tempo)

In this topic, children will:

• Use their bodies and instruments to listen and respond to pieces of classical music that represent animals.
• Identify the difference between dynamics and tempo.

 

Year 2

Autumn 1 - African music (animals)

In this topic, children will:

• Learn a traditional African call and response song.
• Recognise simple notation.
• Compose animal-based call and response rhythms.

Autumn 2 - Orchestral instruments (Traditional western stories)

            In this topic, children will:

• Be introduced to the instruments of the orchestra and practice identifying these within a piece of music.

Year 3 

Autumn 1 - Ballads

In this topic, children will:

• Learn what ballads are, including traditional ballads.
• Learn how to identify a ballads features and how to convey different emotions when performing them.

 

Autumn 2- Recorders

In this topic, children will:

• Learn to play B,A,G,C, D on the recorder.
• They will begin to read notation.

 

Year 4

Autumn 1 - Rainforests (Body and tuned percussion)

In this topic, children will:

• Learn about structure and texture using parts of thier body.
• Revisit the interlated dimensions of music already learned.

   

Autumn 2 - Rock and Roll

In this topic, children will:

• Learn about the origin and features of rock and roll music.
• They will learn how to play the Hard Jive and Rock around the Clock.

 

Year 5 

Autumn 1 - Ancient Eygpt (notation)

In this topic, children will:

• Learn to identify the pitch and rhythm of written notes and experiment with notating their composition.

   

Autumn 2 - Blues

In this topic, children will:

• Be introduced to the genre of Blues music and its history
• Learn to identify the key features and mood of Blues music and its importance and purpose
• They will compose using features of this genre.

Year 6

Autumn 1 - Advanced Rhythms
In this topic, children will:

• Further explore rhythmic patterns in order to build a sense of pulse and using this understanding to create a composition
  

 

                             

Autumn 2 - Film Music
In this topic, children will:

• Explore and identify the characteristics of film music.
• Create a composition and graphic score to perform alongside a film.
  

 

Spring Term

Nursery

Children will:

• Learn about fast and slow rhythms.
• Express their understanding of rhythms they have heard through their bodies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reception

Spring 1 - Music and movement 

In this topic, children will:

• Children come up with simple actions to well-known songs, learn how to move to a beat and express feelings and emotions through movement to music
• Know and use terms - fast/slow and high/low.
• Follow a steady pulse.  Respond to music through movement altering movements to reflect the tempo, dynamics or pitch.Perform a song in a group or on their own.
• Sing back short melodies using at least 2 pitched notes, copy short rhythmic patterns
• Hum along to a melody
• Listen attentively, move to and talk about music expressing their feelings and responses

    

Spring 2 - Musical stories

In this topic, children will:

• Using traditional childrens' tales and songs pupils will move to music changing movements to match the tempo, pitch or dynamic of the piece.
• Understand that music and instruments can be used to convey moods or represent characters.
• Play an instrument as part of a group.

Year 1

Spring 1 - Timre rhythmic patterns (Fairytales)

In this topic, children will:

•            Through fairy tales, be introduced to the concept of timbre; learning that different sounds can represent characters and key moments in a story.

Spring 2 - Pitch and Tempo (superheroes)
In this topic, children will:

• Identify high and low notes and to compose a simple tune
• Investigate how tempo changes help tell a story and make music more exciting
  

 

Woodland

   

 

Year 2

Spring 1 - Musical Me 

In this topic, children will:

• Learn to sing the song ‘Once a Man Fell in a Well’ and to play it using tuned percussion.
• Use letter notation to write a melody.

Spring 2 -  Dynamics, timbre, tempo, motif (Space)
In this topic, children will:

• Develop knowledge and understanding of dynamics, timbre, tempo and instruments, identifying elements in music, comparing pieces by the same composer.
• They visually represent music in creative and more formal ways, learn to play and compose motifs.
  

Woodland

 

 

Year 3

Spring 1 - Pentatonic Melodies (Chinese New Year)

            In this topic, children will:

• Revise key musical terminology, playing and creating pentatonic melodies, composing a piece of music using layered melodies.

               

Spring 2 - Jazz

In this topic, children will:

• Learn about ragtime style music, Dixieland music and scat singing.
• Create a jazz motif using a swung rhythm of a song with actions.

 

Year 4 

Spring 1 - Changes in pitch, rhythm and dynamics (Rivers)

In this topic, children will:

• Learn to listen to changes in pitch, tempo and dynamics and relate it to something familiar.
  

Spring 2 - Music and performance (Hanami Haiku)

In this topic, children will:

• Wirte melodies to their own Haiku’s and perform.

  

 

Year 5

Spring 1 - African Music

            In this topic, children will:

• Learn ‘Shosholoza’, a traditional South African song, play the accompanying chords using tuned percussion and learn to play drums.

Spring 2 - Holi

            In this topic, children will:

• Explore the associations between music, sounds and colour, building up to composing and performing their own musical composition to represent Holi.

   

 

Year 6

Spring 1 - Songs of World War Two

In this topic, children will:

• Continue to develop pitch, control and confidence when singing.
  

 

Spring 2 - Theme and Variation (Pop Art)

In this topic, children will:

• Explore the musical concept of theme and variations and discover how rhythms can ‘translate’ onto different instruments.

                

Woodland

     

 

Summer

            Nursery

            Children will:

• Learn vocabulary linked to musical instruments.
• Know you beat a drum, shake a tambourine and strum a guitar. 

           Reception

           Summer 1 - Big Band

        In this topic, children will:           

• Learn about what makes a musical instrument, the four different groups of musical instruments, following a beat using an untuned instrument and performing a practised song to a small audience.

           Summer 2 - This is Me

          In this topic, children will:

• Learn about music from local, national and own heritage.
• Learn traditional songs.

            Year 1

           Summer 1 - Vocal and Body Sounds (By the sea)

           In this topic, children will:

• Build on prior knowledge and make links between music, sounds and environments and use percussion, vocal and body sounds to represent calm or stormy seas.

           Summer 2 - Musical vocabulary (Under the sea)

           In this topic, children will:

• Demonstrate and combine their knowledge of the interrelated dimensions of music  through chanting and the playing of tuned percussion instruments.

             Year 2

             Summer 1 - British songs and sounds (On this island)

             In this topic, children will:

• Explore how to create sounds to represent three contrasting landscapes: seaside, countryside and city.
• Using images and discussion, they develop an idea of what each of these places would sound like and use this to create compositions.

             Summer 2 - Myths and legends

            In this topic, children will:

• Develop understanding of musical language and how timbre, dynamics and tempo affect the mood of a song.
• Listen to music and sing songs and games from local, national and own heritage

.

                Year 3

               Summer 1 - Vikings 

              In this topic, children will:

• Develop their singing technique; learning to keep in time, and work on musical notation and rhythm, culminating in a group performance.

               Summer 2 - Indian Music 

              In this topic, children will:

• Listen to a range of rag and tal music, identifying traditional instruments as well as creating their own improvisations and performing as a class. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                Year 4

                Summer 1 - Adapting and transposing motifs (Romans)

               In this topic, children will:

• Revisit and develop their understanding of motifs and repeating patterns

                Summer 2 - Samba

                In this topic, children will:

• Be introduced to the music and culture of South America.

 

                 Year 5

                Summer 1 - Looping and remixing

                In this topic, children will:

• Learn about how dance music is created, focusing particularly on the use of loops.

                Summer 2 - Musical Theatre 

              In this topic, children will:

• Be introduced to musical theatre, learning how singing, acting and dancing can be combined to give an overall performance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                Year 6

                Summer 1 - Structure and tonality 

              In this topic, children will:

• Learn about melody, scales and tonality  by appraising composers work and performing melodies.
• Pupils wearn about different structures.

                Summer 2 - Composing and performing a leavers song

             In this topic, children will:

• Spend the topic creating their very own leavers’ song personal to their experiences as a class. (rap)