Music
Intent - what do we want for our developing musicians?
At Horn’s Mill, our music curriculum is rooted in skills progression, ensuring challenge is provided for every child and technical vocabulary is taught across all year groups. When creating our school’s music curriculum, we worked with music experts from our feeder high school to ensure that the music education that we provide enables our children to have sufficient knowledge and skills to be ready for the next stages of their music education once they leave us and inspires them with a lifelong love of music.
Throughout the curriculum, children are given opportunities to
- Listen and appraise music within a diverse range of genres and historical periods
- Sing and immerse themselves in song
- Play and compose music
- Develop their skills of playing a range of instruments, including the tuned instruments: glockenspiel, violin, ukelele and recorder
Alongside classes individually listening, appraising and singing, we have weekly whole school assemblies for singing and sharing music together. We invest in children’s skills as musicians to ensure that they gain the confidence and skills to perform within school and at local community events. Children will leave Horn’s Mill as confident musicians with a love for singing and a range of rich musical experiences.
Reading across the curriculum
In order to develop children's reading skills, our teaching staff plan opportunities for children to independently read age-appropriate texts that link to the music knowledge being studied, or learning that has been previously taught. Whole class reading lessons from Year 2 and throughout KS2 are planned to give children the opportunities to study the lyrics and listen to various genres of music. For example, as part of Year 6s listening and appraisal of musicals, the children study 3 songs from musicals: ‘Speechless’ from Aladdin, ‘Defying Gravity’ from Wicked and ‘Waving through a Window’ from Dear Evan Hansen. During Year 5s learning around Walt Disney in Art, children study 3 songs from Disney movies: ‘Be prepared’ from The Lion King, ‘Out there’ from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and ‘Go the distance’ from Hercules.
Curriculum Enrichment
As part of our music curriculum offer, we work with musical experts to ensure that every child is given a range of rich musical experiences and opportunities to perform with other children from other schools. We work closely with the company, AmaSing, who provide singing and composing sessions. For example, in Year 6, children compose their own leavers’ song with musicians and songwriters from AmaSing and a song, which our children created called ‘Build a world’, was used as a song for all local primary schools to sing together and perform. We provide extracurricular musical opportunities, including taking part in Ho Ho Helsby and performing at Manchester Arena as part of the Young Voices Concert.
Celebrating music creates an opportunity to bring the community together and alongside other curriculum subjects, we perform musical compositions to parents, family members, local residents and residents of our local care home. Music For Life are another company who we have in school to provide specialist musical instrument teaching. Children are offered opportunities to further these skills in a club and provided opportunities to showcase their talents. For example, every year at Horn’s Mill, we hold a Musical Extravaganza, where children across the school perform for an audience.
If you have any further enquiries relating to the music curriculum, please email Miss Emma McMuldroch on emcmuldroch@hornsmill.cheshire.sch.uk.