Music

Across Ladysmith Junior School, we believe that music making is a powerful and personal experience that can aid children’s development; academically, physically, socially and emotionally. Our aim is to provide every child with a high-quality music education which engages, inspires and nurtures a love of music.

Our curriculum is designed to provide all children with the opportunity to experience a wide variety of learning activities including performing, composing, listening and appraising. This is achieved by playing and singing, performing with others, composing and arranging, listening to and appraising musical styles from a wide range of cultures, developing a sense of pitch, timbre, rhythm, tempo, dynamics; developing ideas of notation and using music as a means of self-expression and a source of pleasure.

We implement our curriculum primarily through the Charanga Musical School scheme which is a practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning. Each unit of work comprises of the strands of musical learning in the National Curriculum: listen and appraise; musical activities and perform/share. In addition to Charanga, our children benefit from wider opportunities of whole class instrument teaching. We also utilise peripatetic teachers which enhance our provision and experience for the children. This blended approach fosters intrigue, enquiry and a love of music and demonstrates the impact of our music curriculum.

By the end of Year 6, it is our aim that all of our children will have experienced playing a range of musical instruments and will have had the opportunity to perform to a variety of audiences. They will have been exposed to music from different cultures, genres and periods of history. Our aim is for all pupils to leave us with a love of music and be well equipped for music at secondary school.