At Yealand Church of England Primary School, we understand that music helps to shape emotions, memory and experience. Through music, we can celebrate diversity, appreciate the work of others and simply enjoy the art form for pleasure.
Through our music provision we hope to enrich the lives of our children by giving them a personal songbook of nursery rhymes, traditional songs and songs which they will enjoy throughout their lives. Our intention is for all children at Yealand Church of England Primary School to develop musical skills which will impact positively on their wider experiences as they move through their learning journeys.
By providing opportunities across the curriculum, our children will be introduced to an eclectic range of high-quality recordings, live music and opportunities to explore a range of instruments which will help them to develop confidence in performing, composing and exploring music for themselves.
It is our intent to discover talented individuals and to provide them with opportunities which will develop a passion for music for life.
At Yealand Church of England Primary School, we recognise that music is a subject in its own right, as well as being a tool to enrich learning opportunities across the whole of Yealand Church of England Primary School life.
We have developed a programme of study across our school using the Music Crew resources, which supports the National Curriculum expectations for music, along with the new Model Music curriculum. We use our Dimensions Skills Tracker to assess, monitor and track all children’s progress to ensure that we have full coverage and that we help our children to deepen their understanding of the subject content.
Children are taught skills of
• Performance- learning to play and perform as an individual and as part of a group,
developing self-confidence, a sense of achievement and pride.
• Listening- listening and reviewing what they have heard, listening to other people, learning to listen to performance cues.
• Appreciation- reviewing and evaluating the work of others and their own. Discussing musical techniques using musical vocabulary with confidence.
• Creativity- composing and interpreting new sounds using musical instruments and technology to produce quality pieces.
• Notation- the language of music. Using simple symbols at first and then replacing them with musical notation. Exploring the dynamics of musical production and how composers use symbols to signpost how they want the music to be performed.
In music lessons, playing tuned and untuned instruments is an essential part of all sessions.
In Swallow class, children are given the opportunity to develop skills using a range of instruments through the year. This helps the children to understand the instrument and how it can be played to achieve different effects as well as to learn how it complements other instrumental sounds too. By doing this the children, are able to discuss a range of instruments with confidence and compare them to others as they progress throughout the key stage and begin to choose instruments for desired effects and outcomes.
Yealand Church of England Primary School have good links with Lancaster and Morecambe Singing Festival who provide musical support within school by leading workshops and then holding a special concert at Lancaster Town Hall. We also regularly welcome musicians into school, we feel it is important to provide opportunities for our children to work alongside professional musicians who provide expertise and demonstrate how a passion for and being inspired by music can lead to many careers.
All children have the opportunity to learn a new instrument at Yealand. Those children we identify as being musically gifted or talented are encouraged to access the Lancashire Music Service, who provide weekly music lessons in school led by the peripatetic teacher team. Children who receive Pupil Premium are supported to ensure that they can access this provision at no cost to the family.
Throughout the year, we encourage our children to perform during assemblies so that we have an opportunity to celebrate their achievements and build confidence in performing to an audience.
Singing is very important at Yealand Church of England Primary School as it is recognised as an outlet for joy. All children are taught with passion to sing and to use their voices as a form of creative expression. Annually Key Stage 1 and 2 children, join together to perform at the Lancaster and Morecambe Singing Festival. This gives the children at Yealand Church of England Primary School the opportunity to be part of a wider community, united through song.
Throughout the whole week, high-quality recordings are played in school. They are used to enhance assemblies and dance sessions and also in the background during learning times to help children to focus in a calm and relaxed environment.
Through our music provision, we instill a love of music in our children at Yealand Church of England Primary School. We aspire to encourage our children to love singing and playing instruments and to express themselves confidently through their interaction with music We want our children to be able to use the language of music to share their appreciation of it and to compose and produce their own sounds with a range of effects.
Our aim is that the children at Yealand will leave school knowing a plethora of songs and music which encompasses a wide range of styles and genres, which celebrates all cultures, throughout the ages and to have a passion and understanding that music can support their wellbeing as they move through life.
