Music

Intent

At Penwortham Priory, the Music Curriculum is at least as ambitious as the National Curriculum. It teaches pupils to perform, compose, listen to and evaluate Music in order to foster, develop and enhance highly desirable skills in areas such as self-management, creativity, data analysis, performance, teamwork, problem-solving, and communication. All of these skills will make our pupils an attractive prospect for both potential employers and enrich their later lives as appreciators of the Arts in general as a member of an audience at a concert, festival, or musical.

Central to this process is recognising children’s prior learning, provide challenging learning experiences, thinking hard skills, alongside leadership, organisational, resilience, initiative and communication skills. Breadth of learning and experience within Music lessons allows the most able and ambitious to be further challenged. Equally, pupils’ character and culture in terms of positivity, commitment and willingness to evolve are enhanced and developed lesson by lesson. Teaching, performance, composition and arts administration are among the popular destinations for Music graduates, but others include broadcasting, publishing, law, politics and the Civil Service. Specialising in performance, for example, can result in entry to conservatoires in the UK and abroad and the further enhanced life experiences which will result.

Knowledge underpins the approach to teaching Music at Priory so we ensure that pupils know the detail of what they will learn, how it links to the schema and, consequently, how it links to other subjects. This knowledge is sequenced and mapped deliberately and we use spaced retrieval practice, low-stakes testing and repeated practice so that the knowledge taught is remembered and can be applied to situations beyond school. Pupils acquire a broad vocabulary through reading fiction and non-fiction texts both in and out of lessons. Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary is embedded into both teaching and pupil glossaries.

Cultural capital is enhanced and learning is contextualised via trips and visits in addition to the classroom experience and pupils immerse themselves in new experiences in learning about the local, national and international communities to which they belong.

Through studying music at Penwortham Priory Academy, pupils will…

• perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and professional musicians.
• learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, use technology such as Garageband appropriately and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence
• understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related elements of music: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

Links with other subjects include the Mathematical link with rhythm and pulse work in all performance contexts, in particular African Dance Music in crossrhythm and polyrhythm. The lyrics of song and rap have clear cross-curricular references with English. Humanities links are clearly evident in Music through time in its historical context and Musical genres from across the world such as Samba from Brazil and the Western Classical tradition established in Germany. 

At the heart of the Music curriculum intent is for all pupils to maximise their creative potential regardless of their previous primary experience and exposure. Similarly, the Penwortham Priory Music Curriculum seeks to provide pupils with the creative capital to succeed in their future life, regardless of any social or cultural-based inaccessibility or disadvantage.