Music – Broadfield Primary School

Click here to see the overview for the teaching of Music 2024-2026

Intent – Our Aims

At Broadfield, our aim is to provide opportunities for children to develop as confident, articulate and well-rounded children who can succeed as individuals and contribute to their community and the wider world.

We aim to give our children a high quality music education, which will engage and inspire them to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians. The aims and objectives of our music curriculum are as follows:

To ensure children develop an enjoyment and love for music.
To ensure children gain effective listening skills and sensitivity to sounds.
To ensure an entitlement to music for all pupils in line with the National Curriculum.
To promote continuity, progression and coherence across the school.
To provide opportunities for children to acquire basic skills and understanding in music through participation in musical activities individually and by working in a group.
To develop creativity and imagination through listening, responding and composing.

Implementation – How We Will Do This

Music is taught weekly using the Charanga scheme.

Provision is enhanced in Years 3 and 4 where specialist music teachers from our Local Music Hub deliver lessons on a weekly basis. In these years children learn to play either the violin or the flute during lessons.

Click hereto find out about Wider Opportunities in violins at Broadfield
Click hereto find out about Wider Opportunities in flutes at Broadfield

The Cheranga scheme, along with closely aligned specialist teaching in Years 3 and 4, ensures that skills and concepts learned in previous lessons are revisited and reinforced, helping children build a strong foundation.

Carefully chosen prerequisite and ‘in unit’ learning and assessment tasks which enable children to develop and retain knowledge and skills across a range of topics, build on key concepts and make links year by year.

Progression within the curriculum enables children to gradually tackle more complex musical ideas, such as rhythm, melody, and harmony, while expanding their ability to perform and create music.

Children work collaboratively in pairs, small groups and as part of the whole class and are given the chance to listen to and participate in performances within class and with the school and wider community.

Children are taught to appreciate how different cultures have contributed to popular music genres today and to formulate opinions.

EYFS

Children engage by exploring music through continuous provision, both indoor and outdoor. They have access to a range of percussion instruments enabling creative exploration of different sounds, rhythms and ways of playing. This also helps with the development of both fine and gross motor skills.

In addition, children in Reception are taught music through the Charanga scheme and learn to find a steady pulse using percussion instruments, copy back a simple rhythm, sing a song in unison and say what they like about a performance and how it could be improved.

Key Stage 1

Children receive music lessons weekly. This is provided through the Charanga scheme. The curriculum builds on skills learnt in the EYFS and then introduces tempo and dynamics. Children are exposed to a number of different musical genres such as old school hip hop, reggae, blues, Latin and many more.

Children learn to play the glockenspiel using the notes C, D, E, F, G, A and B. They learn to experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.

Key Stage 2

Children learn to hold a flute and violin correctly with good posture and know how to adjust for minor issues (head joint/ lip position), play simple rhythms: crochets, semibreves, rests (Initially no notation using letters instead), know the names of all strings, differentiate between notes and rest and read G, D, A and E on a stave.

Children in Years 5 and 6 receive weekly music lessons, taught by the class teacher, through the Charanga scheme. Throughout these lessons, children will learn to appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music from different traditions and from great musicians and composers. Children learn how to describe the structure of the song, identify instruments and voices that they can hear in a song and talk about the musical dimensions used in a song.

Musical Performance

Regular opportunities to perform in concerts, either in school or at external venues enable children to grow as confident performers.

Children in KS2 have the opportunity to join a choir where they learn and perform new songs. This may be in school assemblies. The choirs will also have the opportunity to perform at many external events such as ‘Young Voices’, our local church at Christmas and the Oldham Music Festival.

Each year classes from Lower Key Stage 2 attend ‘Come and Play with the Hallé’ at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. This is a unique series of concerts specially designed to offer thousands of children the opportunity to play and sing with an international symphony orchestra.

Children in year 5 also participate in the much loved “Manchester Sings” concert at Manchester Cathedral. Children learn several songs which they perform along with 6 other schools from across the Greater Manchester area.

Impact

The impact of our music curriculum will be:

Children have confidence in their musical abilities and have experience a sense of accomplishment as they master new skills and explored a broader range of musical styles and instruments
Children will demonstrate enthusiasm, an appreciation and love for music
Children will have become confident composers and performers
Children will be able to show an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social and historical contexts in which it is developed.