Intent 

Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity and reflects the culture and society we live in, and so the teaching and learning of music enables children to better understand the world they live in. Besides being a creative and enjoyable activity, music can also be a highly academic and demanding subject. It also plays an important part in helping children feel part of a community. Holbrook school provides opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music, to develop the skills, to appreciate a wide variety of musical forms, and to begin to make judgements about the quality of music.  At Holbrook Primary School, we are dedicated to creating an enjoyable and engaging experience of music for all children. By encouraging the children to participate in a variety of musical experiences, we are actively increasing their creativity, self-confidence and sense of achievement, whilst at the same time, allowing all pupils to develop their love of music. We aim to provide a music curriculum which will enable each child to be successful in reaching their full potential. 

Implementation 

At Holbrook Primary School, our music curriculum ensures that children sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate. This is implemented in classroom activities as well as through our peripatetic lessons and music performances. 

Our children experience music in many different ways: 

Whole School Music 

• Celebration assemblies provide an opportunity for children to perform a favourite song through music. 
• Events such as Christmas Productions, Harvest Festival and School Leavers also provide opportunities for whole school shared music making with particular songs being prepared for these special days. 

Classroom Music 

We make music lessons an enjoyable learning experience. Through singing songs, children learn about the structure and organisation of music. We teach them to listen to and appreciate different forms of music. Children develop descriptive skills in music lessons when learning about how music can represent feelings and emotions. We teach children to make music together, to understand musical notation, and to compose pieces.  

We are fortunate at Holbrook to have a studio hall to allow music lessons to take place in a comfortable well-resourced area. 

• In the Early Years, music is incorporated consistently into daily routines and is used to enhance teaching of the core curriculum. 
• Class teachers deliver weekly music lessons using our new scheme ‘Kapow Primary Music’ which includes a complete scheme to teach the national curriculum, library of songs, topics, instruments and creative apps and also includes support of assessment, SEND and personalised teaching and learning.  
• These sessions involve lessons with musical instruments, music technology, singing, performing arts, acting as well as the history of music. 

Tuition 

Children are offered the opportunity to study a musical instrument with peripatetic teachers. Peripatetic music teaching is provided by West Sussex Music Service. Parents who want their children to participate in the scheme pay the additional music lesson fees on a termly basis. These lessons are normally taught to small groups of children. This is in addition to the normal music teaching of the school, but usually takes place during curriculum time.  

As part of the vision for Holbrook, every child has an opportunity to experience instrumental playing (tuned and untuned instruments), either as an individual, in a small group or as a whole class. 

Children in Year 4 will have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument from an experienced music teacher from West Sussex Music Service.  We offer children opportunities to perform in assemblies to the school and to parents to share their skills.  

Performance Opportunities 

• Seasonal concerts 
• School Productions 
• Assembly performances 
• Local community performances 

Extra-curricular 

Extra-curricular music includes: 

• We have a school choir which we encourage all children from Y4-6 to join. The choir meets on a weekly basis and, although its primary aim is to enable children to enjoy singing together, it also performs in public such as Young Voices at the 02 and the Christmas carol service.  

Impact 

Music enriches the lives of people, and so we wish to involve as many children as possible in musical activities. Through the rich opportunities that our music curriculum offers, when children leave Holbrook Primary School they will have built a love of music and have increased levels of self-confidence. The different genres of music they are exposed to provide great inspiration to help them with their own compositions, developing them as a listener, creator and performer.