Music

Find out how we teach music at Alexandra Primary School.

Music at Alexandra Primary School

Alexandra Primary School is committed to the Creative Arts. In order to ensure that we teach the Creative Arts, including music, to our best ability, we have signed up to the Artsmark. This is the creative quality standard for schools and is accredited by the Arts Council England.

As part our Artsmark journey, we have created a Creative Arts Action Plan which identifies how to ensure that we plan, develop and evaluate our arts, culture and creativity across the curriculum in a coherent and consistent way. Music is obviously a very important part of our Artsmark journey.

We are lucky enough to have a music specialist, Ken Serukenya, leading our musical learning at Alexandra Primary School. We believe we have great musical provision at our school and are constantly looking at ways to build on the work we do.

What we teach?

Music Overview 2021-2022

In Key Stage 1, our pupils are taught to:

use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes;
play tuned and untuned instruments musically;
listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music;
experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the interrelated dimensions of music.

In Key Stage 2, our pupils are taught to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They should develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.

Specifically, they are taught to:

play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression;
improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the interrelated dimensions of music;
listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory;
use and understand staff and other musical notations;
appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians;
develop an understanding of the history of music.

How and when?

All classes from Year 1 – Year 6 have a music lesson once a week. They also have weekly singing assemblies where, amongst other songs, we always revisit our school song – Aspire, Enjoy, Achieve! (is it possible to put a link here so people can listen to it?)

KS1 meet together to share known songs and learn new songs on Fridays after lunch and KS2 end their week on Friday afternoon with their singing assembly.

Reception and Nursery Classes do a lot of singing within their classes on a daily basis but also have a weekly music session, led by Ken.

What opportunities are there for learning instruments?

We have invested in musical instruments so are pupils are able to experience a wide variety of instrumental learning. Our year groups have the opportunity to learn a new instrument each year and currently each year group is learning the following:

Year 1 – Percussion
Year 2 – Glockenspiels
Year 3 – Steel Pans
Year 4 – Ukuleles
Year 5 – Recorder (each child needs to purchase their own recorder)
Year 6 – Violin or Guitar

Pre- and After-School Clubs

We also offer a range of musical opportunities outside of school hours:

Tuesday 8am: KS2 Choir
Tuesday and Thursday after school: Music Club
Friday 8am: Orchestra

Performance Opportunities

We believe it is important for our pupils to have opportunities to perform and so have a range of opportunities for this:

Class assemblies – The pupils within one class have the chance, once a term, to share their learning across the curriculum, to other pupils and to parents and carers who are invited in. Ken, our music specialist, supports each class with the musical element of their assemblies.

Musical Showcases – These take place at the end of each term and are an opportunity for each class to share their musical progress to both other pupils and to parents and carers who are invited in.

Opportunities to perform off-site – We are always looking for opportunities to allow our pupils to show off their musical talents. Over the last few years, we have taken choir to: