Music
You can see details of the national curriculum for Music here.
At St Anne’s, Music helps to ignite the creativity of our children and inspire their imaginations. We believe that engaging in music is an integral part of our children’s development. Our aim is for children to be passionate about music and inspired to continue their love of music into the next part of their journey in life. We recognise that participation in music-making activities including singing, performing, composing and listening increases children’s self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.
Music is also central to enhancing the strong Catholic ethos of our school, creating a prayerful atmosphere for whole school worship and enriching liturgy in the singing of hymns. Music helps us to create a sense of belonging to a Christian community for our children.
With the support of the Dimensions curriculum, the teaching of music is linked to other foundation subjects, enabling the children to make further links in their learning. We recognise that music is beneficial in the development of cognitive skills across the curriculum and can also support the development of English, maths and R.E. Teachers plan regular music lessons which build on the children’s prior knowledge and skills.
In EYFS, our children experiment with different ways of using their voice, for example speaking, singing, whispering and chanting. They clap short rhythmic patterns and experiment with ways of making sounds on a range of percussion instruments. The children listen to a variety of music and can begin to describe the sounds (e.g. loud, quiet, fast, slow, high low) and can express how the music makes them feel.
In Key Stage 1, children use their voices expressively and creatively and play tuned and untuned instruments. They listen to a range of high-quality live and recorded music and experiment with and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.
In Key Stage 2, children sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They compose their own music using musical notations and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments. They listen to and appreciate a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians developing an understanding of the history of music.
Enrichment
At St Anne’s there is a strong emphasis on participation and performance. We are a singing and performing school and have many events where we celebrate our musical skills. All year groups are given the opportunity to apply their musical knowledge and skills by performing to an audience through a range of events such as: feast day liturgies, the Nativity play, the Advent Service, Christmas performances, the Easter service and in the Year 6 end of year production.
Extra-curricular opportunities
St Anne’s encourages children to avail of musical instrument lessons provided by peripatetic teachers such as piano and guitar and the MyBand group lessons who regularly perform their contemporary music to their peers and parents. There is a thriving school choir open to all junior children. We try to take advantage of opportunities to share our musical talents in school projects and within our local community. For example, we have been delighted to participate in a singing project with elderly people who live at a nearby residential home.
