Intent 

Our intent for Music across our Academy is that it is accessible, engaging and inspiring. Music is a subject that allows the children to express their creativity and individuality. We want to encourage this through a varied and current Music education. We value this subject across school, as an area where children can show their unique talents and potential that otherwise would not be seen in core curriculum areas.  

We follow ‘National Oak Academy’ as a general scheme for teaching Music as this allows non-music specialists to ensure that they have a secure subject knowledge to equip children with musical skills. Building upon this we are now adopting the Model Music Curriculum to ensure broad and balanced musical experiences for our children. We then supplement this with personalised planning based on the wider curriculum and cultural capital of our children to meet their needs and engage them. This may mean that year on year, types of music are adapted to tailor learning carefully for the children but this is still done in a broad and balanced way to ensure cultural diversity. We intend that through this, children learn the skills to express their opinions and tolerate that of others by listening to, creating and discussing a variety of genres. These wider life skills are relevant to many areas of life as children grow up and as we aim to support them in becoming skilled and well-rounded individuals. As a school, we are working towards the ‘Artsmark’ award which is designed to support our approach to embed arts, culture and creativity across our whole curriculum. 

Implementation  

The implementation of music is crucial to ensure that we take the right approach to meet and achieve our vision set out in the subject intent. We aim for it to be a consistent approach across the academy to ensure that progress is clear and consistent as children develop their skills year on year.   

As an academy we have chosen to utilise the scheme of work outlined in by Oak National Academy with the clearly identified progression of skills that the children should develop as they progress in their music education. Teachers use the progression skills to plan for in succession to build on the children’s current level. However, we encourage the teachers to use other approaches and resources alongside this. As an academy we are currently developing a more personal progression of skills that is consistent with the needs of the children in our academy and will therefore help us to plan a more personal music curriculum. This will continue to support teacher knowledge and children’s activities as we begin to implement the new Model Music Curriculum at Maltby Manor Academy.  

For example, in Y3 the music curriculum and progression of skills is delivered through the Rotherham Music Service provision in which every child learns to play a tuned instrument. By using the Oak National Academy scheme, it makes it possible for non-music specialists to pick this back up and build on the skills taught by music specialists as the children move into Year 4.   

Music learning and opportunities are further be supplemented by extra-curricular music education through the Academy Choir. This increases the children’s opportunities to perform music and experience a wider range of genres. The Choir is a great opportunity to ensure that individual children’s talents are recognised and celebrated widely. We work closely with the Rotherham Music   

Service who also support staff in recognising and nurturing individual music talent in children through their peripatetic music tuition. This support also means that by the time the children leave Maltby Manor they will have all had the opportunity to play the recorder in Key Stage 1 and a tuned instrument in Year 3 and Year 5.   

In EYFS, music is taught through the ‘Expressive Arts and Design’ and ‘Communication and Language’ areas of learning, alongside the Oak National Academy scheme. Children have the opportunity to explore various musical instruments in provision areas as part of child-initiated learning and in smaller adult led focused group learning tasks. Songs and rhyme are valued and used as a hook for many of the planned for learning opportunities within the EYFS. Including using the new ‘Song drawing’ and ‘Squiggle while you wiggle’ activities which link Music with physical development, writing and PSED.