At East Hunsbury Primary School, it is our intention that our music curriculum is aspirational, enabling, inclusive and enriching. We intend to teach Music so that our pupils enjoy and gain knowledge of how music making and music appreciation can enrich their lives. Our music curriculum is intended to:

• Give children the opportunity to appreciate, perform, understand and compose music from a range of times, traditions, genres and composers.
• Enable children to sing and play musically with increased confidence and control.
• Give all children an opportunity to learn/play a musical instrument.
• Ensure our children develop the technical vocabulary which will help them understand and appreciate Music.
• Encourage mental health and wellbeing by bringing the whole school community together through music.

Working in partnership and with our local Music Hub (Northampton Music and Performing Arts Trust) we intend to create a strong musical culture within our school. Music has the power to foster connections within the brain which will improve memory and coordination. The skills involved in playing and listening to music will also help learners develop the self-esteem, self-discipline, cooperation, creativity, and self-motivation necessary for success. We aim to establish a lifelong passion for music as an art form is that it is accessible to all. It is an art form that is entwined into the fabric of our lives, and we aim to enable children to enrich their experience of all types of music.

We hope children continue to grow in confidence as they progress through the musical curriculum and become passionate in their responses to music. Added to this, we want children to become more independent learners within this area, reflect upon their learning and develop resilience within the musical world.

Music lessons are taught throughout the school by Specialist teachers from Northampton Music and Performing Arts Trust. We have developed and enduring and longstanding relationship with NMPAT as we believe that Specialist teaching ensures all pupils access high quality teaching from staff who are confident and passionate practitioners. This allows pupils to access a wide range of music from across all genres and time periods. 

Early Years

A love and learning of music start in the Early Years where through: Communication and Language, Expressive Arts and Design and Personal development, children will:

• Sing a wide range of nursery rhymes and songs (this is also mapped out in our writing curriculum and part of our oracy)
• Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others and try to move in time to music.
• Combine different movements with fluency (EYFS children are also allocated a performance poem in line with the rest of the school in the Spring term)
• Listen carefully to songs and rhymes, paying attention to how they sound.
• Explore, use and refine a variety of artistic effects to express their ideas and feelings

Children in the Early Years also have a music lesson taught by a specialist teacher once a week.

Building on the Early Years

Music is taught every week and led by a specialist. As a school, we have adopted NMPAT’s music curriculum (based on the Barking and Dagenham end of year expectations model and elements of The Model Music Curriculum) which is logically sequenced with clear progression of substantive and disciplinary knowledge. It has been written by specialists, encompasses our ethos for high quality music teaching and has clear end points with content logically chunked over time which builds towards these outcomes.

The Units taught involve:

• Listening and appraising
• Learning to play a range of instruments
• Singing
• Learning ways to show musical notation
• Reading musical notation
• Creating their own compositions

Music technology is part of the music curriculum and is also integrated into our computing curriculum (e.g. Year 4 Computing unit- Creating media: Audio editing.) Pupils have opportunities to use music technology applications to record or sequence sounds and use this knowledge to create tracks / add music to film / photo sequences / visual art / poems / stories.

Year 3, Year 4 or Year 5 take part in the NMPAT First Access Music Project in which all children learn to play a musical instrument. In this project, children experience live performances and perform to others. They are given opportunities to continue with their tuition after the project has ended through small group or individual lessons.

In addition to the curriculum music teaching, in Key Stage 2, children are offered the opportunity to study a musical instrument with peripatetic teachers. Children are encouraged to perform and show their progress to their peers during class and school assemblies. All instrument learners are also given the chance to showcase their talents and progress to their parents at our end of year Music Gala.

We have a school choir comprising of children in upper KS2 (including the SU) who take part in many performances in the community and the wider area. Performances include singing to residents at local care homes, local library events, singing at special school events (Christmas fair and open evenings) performing at the local Derngate Theatre and at the Genting Arena in Birmingham.

During the school year, our children have the opportunity during the year to see live musical performances from visiting music practitioners from the NMPAT Music Hub.

To ensure inclusion, the Specialist Unit participate with the Mainstream lessons, where appropriate. With the support of the SU staff, the use of Makaton signing is encouraged when singing. Mainstream children enjoy using the Makaton signs alongside their SU peers but it also enables them to learn new signs as well as help to communicate.

During Assemblies, children have opportunities to listen to music from different composers, genres and times and sing age-appropriate songs.

The impact of our music curriculum is measured through:

• Pupil voice/discussion and by how they are able to talk about and appreciate a range of Music.
• Observations of pupil performances including singing and school productions
• Evaluating compositions.
• Achieving awards and quality marks such as: Music Mark (which we achieved in academic year 2021-2022 and 2022-2023) to bench mark our provision and outcomes against.

Assessments should show a development of vocabulary, musical knowledge (substantive and disciplinary) and application of skill.

The specialist NMPAT teachers also undertake assessments during lessons and liaise closely with class teachers on pupil performance, outcomes and attainment. They also provide information for our Parents’ Evenings and Annual Reports.

For more information please refer to the specific music curriculum

For more information please refer to the specific music curriculum