Curriculum Intent

The Music Department aims to instil a lifelong love of music through a wide ranging curriculum that inspires and nurtures all students whatever their ability.  We aim for students to develop into well-rounded musicians across the three strands of the National Curriculum – performing, composing and appraising – who are increasingly self-reflective and who aspire to be the best musician they can.  The design of the curriculum is ambitious to prepare students for future musical study, potential careers as well as an understanding and appreciation of the music they hear.

Open Evening Flyer

Aims

Our aims within the Music Department are to:

• Give all students the opportunity to learn to play more than one musical instrument and the confidence to perform in public
• Increase student understanding of musical concepts within a wide range of musical genres and develop appraisal skills
• Give all students the opportunity to compose their own music and develop their own sense of musical style
• Develop students’ independent learning skills (focus, self-management, metacognition) through individual and group work

Learning Journey

Our learning journeys give a visual overview of the curriculum content covered in each subject. They will help you understand how students make progress in different topics over the years they are with us.

Music Learning Journey

Key Stage Three Overview

All students receive one 50 minute lesson per week.  The curriculum is split into five topics each year where the knowledge and skills learned in one topic are built upon in the next (a spiral curriculum) so that those that want to study music at KS4 have the knowledge and skills required.

In Year 7 students learn about rhythm and melody before learning to play keyboard.  They also explore Sea Shanties and Silent Film.

In Year 8 students learn to play guitar which is then used to develop performing and composing skills through exploring Blues and Reggae Music.  They also learn to use a DAW (digital audio workstation) and end the year by becoming film composers.

In Year 9 students follow a more vocational style of learning, choosing their own music to perform and compose.  They create covers of songs as well as composing their own original song in a group and end the year hosting their very own podcast.

Key Stage Four Overview

We currently follow the Eduqas syllabus for GCSE Music.  The course is divided into three strands – performing; composing; listening and appraising.

Students choose their instrument for the performing elements of the course and develop their skills performing solo and as part of an ensemble.  They will be encouraged to participate in school music groups and concerts.  The other practical part of the course is composition.  Over the two years students create two original pieces of music with one being in response to a brief set by the exam board.  These two strands are assessed through coursework.

The final strand of GCSE Music is listening and appraising which is assessed through an exam.  Throughout the course students will hone their listening skills to be able to aurally identify musical instruments and other musical features in a range of musical styles.  They will also study two set works which are currently ‘Badinerie’ by JS Bach and ‘Africa’ by Toto.

Key Words

We aim to support students in their literacy across all curriculum subjects. We provide keyword lists as a teaching and learning tool to support student understanding of the technical vocabulary needed to articulate their learning about a particular subject.

Music Key Words

Trips and Extra-Curricular Activities

The most important extra-curricular offer that the Music Department offers is individual or paired musical instrument tuition.  These lessons are taught by a team of highly talented music tutors.  Students can choose to study drum kit, guitar, piano, voice, flute, saxophone, clarinet, and violin.  Recently this has expanded to include DJ skills and LAMDA.

There are regular concerts throughout the academic year and the music department works with drama to produce school shows.

The music department is open to students at break and lunch time to pursue their own musical interests either on their own or as part of a band/group.  Other groups are put together by music staff to support students’ musical development for GCSE and to perform in school concerts.

Staff

Mrs D Scott- Leader of Music

Music Tutors

• Drums – Pete Watson
• Guitar – Karl White
• Piano – Christian Smith
• Singing – Sam Hawkins
• Violin – Lou Mansbridge
• Woodwind – Holly Cushion
• LAMDA – Lucy Cammack
• DJ – organised externally by NextGen Music