We love music at St Helena’s C of E Primary School. As musicians we develop our creativity, imagination, and good listening skills. Through a cohesively planned curriculum we will inspire our children, develop their skills in constructive criticism and give them the ability to express personal thoughts and feelings. Music develops children’s ability to take part in practical activities, both individually and in groups. Music is a key tool for developing cultural capital and a sense of community. Children are encouraged to explore different genres and music diversity throughout their lessons. The music curriculum provides breadth and balance, is relevant, engaging and hopes to match the needs and abilities of children. Our music provision is ambitious, fun and varied. Through our music curriculum, we strive to inspire children, develop a life-long love of music, and develop musical skills, knowledge and wisdom.

Our music curriculum is built around the Music Express scheme of work (for Y1-Y6) and enhanced and personalised to meet the needs of all learners at St Helena’s. Enhancements and personalisation includes the use of adaptive teaching, links to the community and our locality and purposeful cross curricular links, which are planned and timely to support and strengthen learning. Music in EYFS is underpinned by the Expressive Arts and Design objectives as set out in our personalised EYFS Curriculum.

• Music is delivered weekly across the school, with multiple opportunities to explore and play instruments.
• Music long-term plan has been developed to ensure that music skills are well developed and revisited through our spiral curriculum to ensure a good coverage of skills over each phase of education.
• Learning is pitched and scaffolded to enable all learners to be stretched and challenged.
• All pupils are given feedback during lessons to support them in developing their music skills further.
• Assessment of skills and knowledge happens on a lesson by lesson basis and this information is used to inform future lessons and identify ‘high flyers’. Formative assessment will be made through questioning the children’s choices and decision making during the learning.
• Children will be encouraged to self-evaluate and reflect to develop the piece further.
• To inspire the next generation of musicicians, local and wider career opportunities are celebrated and explored throughout school.
• Adults modelling the music process or skills will set the children up for success.
• Alongside class teachers, Lincolnshire Music Service teach music to one year group each year. They offer music tuition at a high class level, where the children develop their knowledge and skills within a small range of instruments throughout their time within the school.
• Music is progressive in skills and knowledge and in line with the Model Music Curriculum.
• Through the teaching of music, children are taught key vocabulary and skills which develop year on year. This is also mirrored within lessons delivered by Music Service.
• Enrichment opportunities are frequent and carefully placed throughout the year. These include church services, Young Voices, the world’s largest choir, nativities, Spilsby Music Festival, end of year productions and so many more.
• Extra-curricular opportunities are available for all children, these include choir and piano lessons.
• Music is a key part of our collective worship and the children enjoy singing a variety of songs, including those from various genres and origins.>/li>
• Opportunities for parents, carers and the wider community to watch and join in with music are also embedded into our school. These include our church services and weekly celebration assemblies.
• Creativity is a fragile, personal process and should be nurtured and supported.

As a Year 6 musician transitioning to secondary school, we aspire that all learners will have developed a wide range of art skills and techniques; an appreciation and love for music; know about great composers, performers and song writers and understand the historical and cultural development of different music forms.