Music
Music is all around us. It is the soundtrack to our lives. Music connects us through people and places in our ever-changing world and is accessed and loved by all – music builds communities. It is creative, collaborative, celebratory and challenging. In our school, music can bring communities together through shared endeavour of whole school singing, ensemble playing, experimenting with the creative process and, through the love of listening to friends and fellow pupils, performing. The sheer joy of music making can feed the soul of our school community, enriching each pupil while strengthening the shared bonds of support and trust which make our school a great school. Music provides the opportunity for all pupils to excel and experience wellbeing: to work hard, persevere and shine
At ACE, we recognise that music is a vital part of children’s education, with a significant and valuable role in the taught curriculum and the enrichment opportunities we offer our pupils. Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. The unique quality of this subject is its ability to instill a passion for life, whoever you are and wherever you are in the world. A high-quality music education engages and inspires pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical repertoire.
Aims (desired outcomes)
At Altrincham CE Primary School, music should be fully inclusive of every child, fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for music, provide a broad and balanced cross-curriculum offer which ensures the progressive development of knowledge and skills.
We aim for our children to:
- Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians.
- Learn to sing and use their voices to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn an instrument, use technology appropriately and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence.
- Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.
How Our Music Curriculum Is Implemented at Altrincham CE
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Instrumental Sessions - In Years 1-6, all children receive instrumental sessions delivered by specialist teachers from Trafford Music Service.
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Piece of music of the half term - In cooperation with the Model Music Curriculum, each class focuses on a piece of music each half term. They will listen to this music regularly and appraise it.
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Weekly Singing and Listening - Children attend weekly singing assemblies, where they have the opportunity to sing as a whole school. They are exposed to a wide variety of music styles during these assemblies.
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Exposure to Musicians - Children have the opportunity to watch professional singers and musicians perform during twice yearly ExTraffordGanzas (a Trafford wide event).
Trafford Music Service
We are delighted to work in partnership with Trafford Music Service enabling us to benefit from their musical expertise and skill. Tutors from TMS deliver our whole school music curriculum offer as well as supporting us in delivering individual music lessons for pupils.
Whole Class Instrument Lessons
As part of our school wide offer for music, every year group, from Year 1 has the opportunity to learn to play an instrument. The instrument varies from year to year and have included: guitar, recorder, French horn, clarinet, saxophone, violin …
By the time the children leave us in Year 6, they will have had the opportunity to learn to play five different instruments and at the end of every block of whole class music lessons, a concert is held where parents and grandparents are invited into school to hear the children play.
Should any child wish to continue learning to play a particular instrument after the whole class lessons have concluded, this can be arranged in school, through liaison with Trafford Music Service.
Individual Music Lessons
The strong tradition of music at Altrincham CE extends to the opportunity for children to learn to play an instrument through 1:1 instrumental lessons with our peripatetic music teachers. If this is something you are interested in, please speak to the school office for further details.