Music

Intent: Why teach Music?

Here at Westbury, our aim is to inspire and motivate children to learn and explore with music. We want all children to experience and create a wide variety of genres whilst broadening their cultural awareness. We believe that music should be accessible to all and that children should be given opportunities to share their musical skills at different events both in and out of school.
We use music to encourage life-long skills of teamwork and responsibility whilst boosting self-esteem and confidence.

We teach to the National Curriculum and strongly agree that, ‘Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.’ Music lessons are designed to stimulate the entire class and to engage all children regardless of ability. Staff at Westbury use music across all subjects to enhance the learning of their pupils and a variety of one-to-one lessons are offered to further develop student’s passions..

Implementation: How is Music taught at Westbury on Trym CE Academy?

 At Westbury, we follow the Bristol Plays Music curriculum. We teach music through three main areas: rhythm, pitch and chronology and composition. We encourage children to be hands on and explore these areas using a range of percussion and tuned instruments.

We believe children should experience a wide range of genres from a variety of countries and we ensure this is reflected within our curriculum. The curriculum develops children’s understanding of musical notation and gives children knowledge of notes, intervals and octaves. The children further their understanding of how songs are created using a range of apps where they can compose and edit their own pieces giving them insight into music production.

We place great emphasis on enjoyment when choosing songs for the children to learn. Our weekly singing assemblies offer the children an opportunity to study and rehearse traditional hymns as well as modern songs from the UK and the rest of the world. We aim to boost children’s confidence through whole-school performances at our local church and we have a well-attended and successful school choir. We are passionate about giving our children real-life experiences and therefore take part in several local community events as well as larger events further afield.
Where possible, events are supported by professional musicians and children are given the opportunity to experience high-quality live music. Singing assemblies are often accompanied by guitar and children are encouraged to participate in school-wide initiatives to showcase their skills.

 Here's a little flavour of some of the musical talent that we have in our school family.

 Music knowledge and skills progression

bristol curriculum for music inter related dimensions framework 1 .pdf