Why We Study Music
Music is a unique way of communicating that can inspire and motivate children. It is a vehicle for personal expression, and it can play an important part in the personal development of people. Music reflects the culture and society we live in, and so the teaching and learning of music enable children to better understand the world that they live in. Besides being a creative and enjoyable activity, music can also be a highly academic and demanding subject. It also plays an important part in helping children to feel part of a community. We provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop the skills, to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms, and to begin to make judgements about the quality of music.
How We Teach Music
Music is taught to all year groups on a weekly basis by a specialist member of staff. Music is delivered to cohorts either by class or by year group. It encompasses a range of activities, from group singing and instrumental work to listening, reflecting and composing. It often makes links with other aspects of children’s learning, such as historical and geographical themes.
As a whole school, we have a choral worship/assembly slot once a week when children are taught a variety of traditional and modern songs which reflect our values as a school and aspects of religion/morality/personal attributes.
We offer a range of extra-curricular clubs, currently including, treble recorders, ukuleles, handbells and clarinets. Occasionally, visiting musicians give workshops or performances.
What Is Special About Music In Our School
At Broughton, we have developed a tradition of high standards in performance-based and extra-curricular music. This means that children are able to access high-quality music tuition both within the classroom, but also have opportunities to develop and extend their skills in a range of activities at other times. We continue our long-standing tradition of the whole of Key Stage 2 performing a musical in the summer term; our EYFS and Key Stage 1 Children work towards Christmas performances. The whole school prepares for a traditional harvest festival at our local church. At other times, whole year groups incorporate music as part of their class celebration assemblies.
Our school has also developed a reputation for choral excellence at our local musical festivals: our Junior and Infant choirs perform annually at the North Lincolnshire (Brigg) and Scunthorpe festivals, often with much success. This allows us to offer our children performance opportunities beyond school and to collaborate with other musicians in the area.
In common with the school’s drive to build characteristics of resilience, empathy and independence, older children are encouraged to cascade skills to their peers and younger children, for instance in instrumental work. Increasingly, we are looking to develop a series of experiences in a range of instruments and musical styles and genres; this is especially important as a way of addressing fluidity of movement when children join or leave us part way through the school.
We are constantly looking for ways to respond to the needs of our children and to make music an interesting and relevant area of study. In addition to providing a range of skills and experiences, we continue to explore new ways of accessing and developing musicality that will create a platform of interests that they can carry forward with them both at secondary school and beyond. Recent initiatives have looked at developing awareness of music technology, at accessing music via our school website and at developing a broad awareness of music from folk, classical and popular traditions.
Many of our successes are dependent on the collaboration and expertise of other staff that enables high quality rehearsal and performance opportunities for our children, for example, in choir and our Key Stage 2 performances.