The Music Curriculum

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Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.”  – Plato

At Kentmere Academy & Nursery, music is a highly valued, integral part of our school life. We encourage a value of music because it is one of the most powerful and unique forms of communication that can change and impact the way children think, feel and act. We believe that teaching music helps the body and the mind work together. Exposing children to music during early development helps them to learn the sounds and meanings of words. Dancing to music helps children build their motor skills while allowing them to practice self-expression and keep fit. We believe that every child should have the opportunity to develop their musical potential and we aim to nurture and encourage musical development across the school.
At Kentmere we make music an enjoyable learning experience. We encourage children to participate in a variety of musical experiences through which we aim to build up the confidence of all children. We ensure that our music lessons are interactive to ensure the children are engaged and inspired.

We aim for our music curriculum to give all children fun, practical and inspiring experiences so that they can enjoy all aspects of music. Children are actively encouraged and given the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument, from standard classroom instruments to individual instrumental lessons with visiting music specialists.

Children at Kentmere are extremely lucky to receive a term of weekly music lessons and instrumental projects with a specialist music teacher and then class teachers deliver music following the mapped out programme for the rest of the school year. The elements of music are taught in classroom lessons so that children are able to use some of the language of music to dissect it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed.

Termly, classes take part in instrumental projects. Delivered by specialist teachers, these projects have included the following: glockenspiels, fife, guitar, ukulele and strings.. Playing various instruments enables children to use a range of methods to create notes, as well as how to read basic music notation. They also learn how to compose, focusing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music.

We enrich our music curriculum with many opportunities for children to perform and develop a wide range of skills both inside and outside of the classroom. In addition to our class instrumental projects, children in KS2 are offered the opportunity to have free weekly lessons for brass, woodwind and percussion instruments. In addition to this, extra curricular opportunities include singing as part of one of our choirs; singing with the school in assemblies; taking part in annual musical events such as carol services, choir festivals, instrumental concerts and musical performances.

By the time children leave Kentmere they will have a rapidly widened repertoire which they will be able to use to create original, imaginative, fluent and distinctive composing and performance works. The children leave Kentmere as musicians who possess the following traits:

Confidence
Patience
Modesty
Creativity
Resilience

The musicians at Kentmere will have exceeded the expectations of the National Curriculum and be well prepared for the secondary stages of their musical education.