Music at Summerbank

Our Curriculum Intent

We understand that music can inspire and motivate children, and play an important role in their personal development. Music can also help children develop a greater appreciation of the world we live in, by understanding different cultures and societies through music.  At Summerbank Academy our music curriculum is designed to inspire creativity and self-expression by promoting listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing and composing through children’s involvement in weekly music lessons and taking part in various musical experiences.  We aim to encourage our children on their musical journey and give them the opportunity to connect with others, the school and in our local community. By offering an exciting music curriculum and a variety of after school sessions teaching choir, drumming and violins, we hope to ignite a lifelong passion for music so children understand the value and importance of this creative subject.

We deliver a broad and balanced music curriculum, in line with national requirements and The Model Music Curriculum, which enables pupils to:

• 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 musicians.
• Learn to sing and use their voices.
• Create and compose music on their own and alongside their peers.
• Have the opportunities to learn a musical instrument, use technology properly and to progress to the next level of musical excellence.
• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations

It is important that children can develop their own creativity whilst also improving their musical skills. Here at Summerbank we follow the National Curriculum programmes of study and also the online Charanga scheme that ensures there is progression of skills across the key phases, including using tuned and untuned percussion. Children are also encouraged to evaluate their own music and that of others.

Our aim is to open a pathway to children so they can fulfil their potential and those choosing to continue in their musical aspirations will have every opportunity to develop, succeed and achieve in this area. Therefore, when children enter year 3, every child has the opportunity to play an instrument and access weekly lessons offered by a music specialist. Children can then  continue their learning and build upon the vital skills already gained by attending the after school music sessions offered.

We understand that this valuable subject lends itself to be thread throughout the curriculum and that it can add an additional dimension to appropriate lessons, playing a significant role in making learning fun and rememberable.  Music is a great way for children to express themselves and as such is a very important part of a child’s education. In our school children enjoy their music lessons and look forward to playing percussion which enables them to use a range of methods to create and compose music, as well as learn how to read basic music notation.

All our children engage in whole school singing practise, concerts and performances.  To ensure children are fully submersed in musical experiences we also arrange school visits from musicians and other specialists to come and perform to all year groups.