Implementation:

Children at St Thomas experience music in a range of contexts:

Each class receive a weekly music lesson following the acclaimed Charanga Musical School scheme. Through this scheme, children are taught to develop their musical understanding, make musical judgements, develop their aural memory, express themselves physically and emotionally and create their own musical ideas. Within this scheme, children use both voice and instruments (such as glockenspiel and the ukulele) to learn, perform, improvise and compose a range of pieces from across the ages and around the world.

Music is taught in year groups with teachers and staff supporting children in developing an understanding of music within its cultural and historical context. Music and performance forms a key part of our class assemblies, in which children demonstrate their learning.

Music also has a significant role in our cultural celebrations throughout the year, with children learning and performing songs for events such as harvest festival.

Our listening calendar develops children’s cultural capital, exposing children to a wide range of different music genres as well as influential artists or pieces of music.

All children learn and perform songs for Christmas performances to parents and the wider community.

Children have access to digital music making technology such as ‘Garage Band’ ‘ and ‘Yumu.’

Our curriculum is progressive. We build upon the learning and skill development of the previous years, beginning each unit and lesson with teacher assessments of what children already know in order to inform the learning that follows. Teachers use precise questioning, alongside observation of the class to evaluate conceptual knowledge and skills.