Music

Music plays a vital role in the life of our school, and is celebrated and promoted in our curriculum and extra-curricular activities. At Brookmans Park School, we aim to ensure that the music curriculum is challenging, engaging, diverse and active, in line with National Curriculum objectives. We aim for each child to sing, play a range of tuned/untuned instruments, compose and improvise with confidence to the best of their ability. In order to celebrate their achievements, we provide regular opportunities for live performance. Our children have a diverse range of musical experiences through activities and interests outside of school, which are built upon in school in order to challenge all children. In our lessons, we listen respectfully to each other, and regularly offer praise and constructive criticism to further improve outcomes. We provide all year groups with the opportunity to listen to music from a variety of historical periods, styles, traditions and genres, and encourage them to identify and articulate personal preferences. Children are actively engaged in making music in all lessons: they listen, sing, work collaboratively in groups, notate music and use a variety of instruments and technology.

We ensure that progression in music is evident throughout the school, with children acquiring necessary skills and knowledge within and across phases. As music is inherently a practical and collaborative subject, we offer additional, equal opportunities for children to access music outside of the curriculum.

To support music within curriculum lessons we:

• Use Charanga as a model scheme
• Regularly monitor and adapt planning where necessary
• Use SingUp to support regular singing in class
• Have weekly singing assemblies for KS1 and KS2, fostering collaboration and developing singing techniques
• Plan daily singing opportunities in the EYFS to support learning in wider curriculum areas
• Use video evidence (and toolkits in KS2) to provide assessment opportunities.
• Conduct yearly Pupil Voice sessions to ensure that children’s views and opinions about music are respected

At Brookmans Park School, we aim for our children to enjoy music and look forward to their lessons. We believe that, should this be achieved, children will continue to make good and outstanding progress.

We also provide enriching extra-curricular opportunities for children to extend their learning:

• KS2 choir with frequent opportunities to perform at venues such as Wembley Arena, The O2, community events in the village, The Royal Albert Hall
• KS2 orchestra (as part of POTSMA)
• Recorder club
• POTSMA (Potters Bar and District Schools’ Music Association) led by music lead, with our children taking part in a massed choir and orchestra annual performance at The Wyllyotts theatre
• Peripatetic lessons offered for children in Years 2 – 6 in: piano, guitar, drums, brass, flute, clarinet, violin/viola and cello.
• Termly performance opportunities for each class to perform to a live audience
• Bi-annual music assemblies in each instrumental area
• Annual musical show performed by each phase (EYFS and KS1 Autumn Term, LKS2 Spring Term, UKS2 Summer Term)