Music

At Whitmore Park we have developed Music to being taught by class teachers over the last few years. This is after transitioning from a Music specialist teacher, who delivered the music lessons to the whole school. We follow the Charanga Music Scheme as this provides staff with the resources and declarative knowledge they need to deliver the lessons. Each unit of work is six weeks long and focuses on clear progression and key skills. The children listen and appraise a focus song for that unit and learn to sing it, they explore other songs within the same genre and have the opportunity to listen, appraise and compare them to the focus song. They move on to learning the song on an instrument (KS1 chime bars, LKS2 glockenspiels and UKS2 keyboards), using rhythm grids to support improvisation skills, improvising to the song and then composing their own versions of the song as a class. The children then perform the song at the end of the unit.

We have a range of music abilities within the cohort of teachers delivering the lessons, some who have great knowledge and experience of music and others who haven’t taught music previously. The main strengths we have are lessons are being taught using the scheme and the adaptations that have been made to it are being followed. The knowledge of teachers with previous music experience is used to support staff with less experience in delivering lessons. The use of instruments within lessons are being developed and key vocabulary is beginning to be used with confidence when sharing with the children.