By Jamie Steels
Curriculum Intent
At St Thomas Primary School our aim is to develop a love of music and an appreciation of the wide variety of musical styles from across the world, and encourage children to explore and experiment to find their own areas of interest.
The aims of teaching music in our school are to develop pupils who:
Special Educational Needs Disability (SEND) / Pupil Premium / Higher Attainers
Research suggests that arts participation has a greater effect for younger learners and in some cases, higher attainment for disadvantaged pupils. The wider benefits of music and art education show long term positive benefits to learning and an increasing sense of well-being for all pupils.
Curriculum Implementation
Music follows the planning principles of St Thomas School with planning based on the National Curriculum, Focus Education Documents on Progress in the National Curriculum and Skills Progression Documents with defined progress for each year group. However, planning starts for teachers at St Thomas with assessment for learning and one of the core strengths of all teaching staff is knowing the starting point and end point for the children and planning activities which develop skills and reinforce previously taught skills. This on-going process of Assessment for Learning allows teachers to plan subsequent lessons which build upon the children’s achievements. As music is primarily a practical lesson, most assessment of chilren’s learning is based on AfL with strong elements of verbal feedback for the children, allowing them to focus on the learning they have done so far and the steps they need to take next so that they become aware of the steps they need to implement to improve.
Curriculum Impact
Music has the ability to have a massive impact on the health and wellbeing of all individuals and all children at St Thomas will receive regular opportunities to take part in Music through:
Children will
In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods: