Summary highlights and key changes

• The Music programme of study for KS1 and KS2 for England published in September 2013 has produced a framework not dissimilar to the old music curriculum, although in a much less prescriptive format, allowing for a more creative approach in the classroom.
• The newest addition to the programme is the requirement to teach staff notation.  The previous curriculum (QCA 2000) was less prescriptive with respect to the requirement to teach notation.

 

Key points for schools to consider

Progression

‘As pupils progress they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon’ (DfE, 2013).  Progression can be recorded in written form although, as music is about listening and performance, recordings could be made, which would facilitate peer assessment at a later date.  This would satisfy the requirements to assess and evaluate performance and the use of technology.

Resources

• The Associated Boards of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) publish a series of music theory workbooks, which progress through the grades.  These will take the children from the very basics of staff notation. It is unlikely that it will be necessary to progress past the ABRSM grade 3.
• A suitable digital recorder or sound recording programme installed on the class computer including microphones.
• Various instruments: tuned/untuned percussion; keyboards.

Professional Development

Where a primary or junior school is fortunate enough to have on staff a musically literate teacher teaching staff notation will not pose a problem, however, we should recognise that this is not always the case.  It is, in fact, an ideal, the vision of which is limited by economy.  In other words, that there are at present teachers who are not suitably qualified to teach staff notation is not a hurdle that is insurmountable but it is one that would require a not inconsiderable investment in order to overcome.

Timetabling

Music classes might be taken as two half hour slots per week with the first half hour given to staff notation and the second given to the elements of music in which pitch, tempo, dynamics, timbre, rhythm etc could be explored.  The culmination of each half term might be a written composition that explores the child’s understanding of the particular unit.

 

Case Studies

Music  and the wider community: St James’s

All children at St James’s experience music in the classroom while some may choose to pursue their musical interest more seriously by joining extra-curricular groups such as the Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Strings, Guitar Ensemble, one of the three choirs at school or Jamming Together, an after school club for those musicians who would like to join a pop/rock band.

Children are offered the opportunity to have individual violin, viola, ‘cello, double-bass, guitar, piano, brass, woodwind or singing lessons as well as electric guitar, bass guitar and drum-kit. All the children in year 3 participate in at least one term of the Wider Opportunities programme:

Of the 90 children who begin the programme about 60% continue into the spring and summer terms. Normally between 20 – 30 of those children will continue with instrumental tuition, either continuing with their string instrument or electing to pursue another instrument.

Every child in KS2 sings in the Carol Service while FS/ KS1 children perform in their respective year group Nativity plays. There are several opportunities for musicians to perform throughout the year including at the Christmas Concert, the Spring Concert, the Summer Symphony, the summer fair and assemblies throughout the year.

In the summer term the year 6 children stage a musical production in which they all participate.

The Chamber Choir leads the singing at the Masses celebrated at school to which the local Catholic community is invited and, as a part of our community outreach, the Chamber Choir leads the singing at Masses celebrated in the various parishes that serve the school from time to time. The School Choir performs at the Choral Festival held at St Mark’s School.

 In the summer term 2014 St James’s will host its inaugural Infants’ Singing Festival with other local primary schools invited to participate.

Links have been forged with various other schools for performance opportunities such as St Mark’s School (Choral Festival), Gunnersbury School (Easter Concert), Hampton School (Instrumental Day) and the Yehudi Menuhin School (Schools Concert).

 We also enjoy an international partnership in Arkansas in the US (Parkview Elementary School); using SKYPE the children in year 4 speak to their counterparts in the US and prepare songs to sing to each other. Local community links include The Royal School of Military Music at Kneller Hall, the Teddington Choral Society, with whom we sing at their Christmas Concert annually and Orione Care Home, the residents of which are invited to our Summer Symphony and, towards Christmas, to a Christmas lunch after which they are invited to join in carol singing with the Infants’ Choir.