Music Curriculum
We believe that all children should have the opportunity to experience, achieve and enjoy the subject of music. We hope to promote a positive attitude in our children towards expressing musical ideas and appreciating music from different traditions.
We cover the following topics:
Reception
Autumn:
Beat and tempo, sing action songs keeping the beat, sing songs at different speeds, walking and running notes, sing songs that encourage social skills. High and low notes, use musical instruments to explore pitch, recognise, sing and play high and low notes.
Spring:
Keeping the beat with actions and instruments, sing a variety of counting songs, copy a simple rhythm. Everyday sounds – make a variety of sounds using waste paper and plastic, use instruments to imitate these sounds, compose machine music, sing songs about the working world.
Summer:
Loud and quiet sounds, learn songs about growth and change, control instruments to play loudly and quietly. Explore different kinds of sounds – shake, tap, scrape, use instruments to accompany songs which focus on everyday sounds.
Year 1
Autumn:
Exploring sounds – learn to recognise a variety of musical instruments by their sounds, listen to descriptive music, create sound pictures. Long and short sounds, understand that sounds are caused by vibration, sing songs focusing on long and short notes, use instruments to create long and short sounds.
Spring:
Pulse and rhythm, sing a variety of songs keeping the beat with instruments and actions, keep the beat of different pieces of music. Exploring pitch - recognise, sing and play high and low notes, sing songs using hand levels to follow the pitch.
Summer:
Use symbols to represent sounds, compose music using graphic scores, play instruments with control. Explore timbre, tempo and dynamics, use hand actions to describe music, listen to and compose minibeast music, sing songs about minibeasts.
Year 2
Autumn:
Long and short sounds, sing songs focusing on long and short notes using instruments to accompany them, follow a graphic score. Exploring beat and rhythm – practise keeping the beat, sing songs with actions and instruments keeping in time.
Spring:
High and low notes, use tuned instruments to play notes of different pitch, learn to play a tune with just 3 notes. Recognise a variety of musical instruments and what they are made of, understand how this affects the sounds they produce, sing songs using instruments to accompany them.
Summer:
Exploring timbre, tempo and dynamics – sing songs about the weather and use instruments descriptively, control instruments to create different dynamics. Practise songs for the summer musical production.
Year 3
Autumn:
Animal music – sing songs about different animals, learn to play a simple tune with 3 notes, sing in 2 parts, listen to music from “Carnival of the Animals”. Exploring rhythmic patterns – learn the Noah’s Ark rap and copy the rhythms in it, understand the difference between rhythm and pulse, play some different rhythm games.
Spring:
Tune and accompaniment – work in groups to compose an accompaniment for a song, choose appropriate instruments, listen to music and identify the instruments. Pentatonic scales – play different scales on tuned instruments, learn songs using the pentatonic scale, compose pentatonic tunes.
Summer:
Painting with sound – listen to a variety of descriptive music, use instruments descriptively, compose music to describe a picture. Singing games – learn simple songs for clapping, skipping and passing, compose their own singing games, sing songs with a strong sense of pulse.
Year 4
Autumn:
Exploring rhythmic patterns – play a variety of rhythm games, copy rhythms using instruments, sing songs focusing on keeping the rhythm accurate. Understand the difference between tune and accompaniment, play a simple tune and work in groups to compose an accompaniment.
Spring:
Exploring scales – use tuned instruments to play a variety of different scales, identify thedegrees of the scale by ear, sing songs based on the different scale patterns. Listen to and discuss different examples of descriptive music from different parts of the world, create sound pictures, use instruments descriptively.
Summer:
Exploring sound signals – recognise and play a variety of everyday sound signals, learn to play Westminster chimes on tuned instruments, copy 3 beat rhythms. Sing songs relating to topic work. Animal music – listen to music about creatures real and imaginary, learn to play a simple pentatonic tune and sing a pentatonic song in 2 parts.
Year 5
Autumn:
Cyclic patterns in music – learn some African songs and drumming patterns, keep a steady beat, follow a cue to change from one rhythm to another. Exploring rounds – learn to sing in harmony by practising a number of different rounds, play some of these rounds on tuned instruments.
Spring:
Listen to music with an outer space theme, compose outer space music using note clusters and the whole tone scale. Learn some songs which have a historical context, write lyrics for a protest song, use instruments to create a suitable accompaniment.
Summer:
Performing together – learn the songs Cats and Mice, follow a graphic score for the accompaniment, practise performances, sing the songs in 2 parts. Learn how to read musical notes on the stave, write down simple rhythms from dictation, write lyrics for a song and work out an appropriate tune using tuned instruments.
Year 6
Autumn:
Exploring rounds – practise singing in harmony by learning a number of rounds, use tuned instruments to play scales, listen to music by Erik Satie, revise standard musical notation. The influence of technology on music – follow a piece of music composed with a sequencer, use keyboards to play a tune written on a synthsiser, learn how IT can change sounds.
Spring:
Listen to blues style music, learn the chord sequence for 12 bar blues on tuned instruments, improvise simple tunes with this sequence, appreciate the historical context of songs. Cyclic patterns – listen to music from different parts of the world which use cyclic patterns, learn to play some Indonesian gamelan music, compose music with cyclic patterns.
Summer:
Learn the notes on a piano keyboard, use keyboards to play simple tunes reading music from a score, play and identify mystery tunes. Learn songs for the summer Y6 performance.