1. What is the curriculum rationale in Music?

Intent: purpose and values of Music

Our intent is to open all students’ minds to the emotive and spiritual wonder that music provides for everyone so that they develop a life-long love of music in all of its forms. We aim to develop our students’ knowledge and understanding of performance, analysis and composition, developing their practical skills across a variety of instruments and genres. Alongside this, we aim to give our students’ an awareness of the rich cultural impact music has across the world and how music has developed through history.

We believe that:

• A high-quality music education opens doors for our students and helps them to flourish in life learning and work.
• All students can learn a music curriculum and progress within music
• All students can gain personal motivation and self-esteem through the adoption of the PRIDE code as the lingua-franca of this subject area
• Gaps in music knowledge can increase the impact of social disadvantage
• All students should be encouraged to identify with the work of musicians.

We therefore:

• Aim to provide all our students with access to the music curriculum
• Consider how our selection of language and knowledge within music is inclusive and including of a diverse range of voices

To ensure that all our students are benefiting from the cultural capital of an education in music, the music curriculum is designed to be inclusive, aiming to develop young people of character who feel they are able to express themselves and connect to music on an emotional level, whilst understanding the importance of the historical and cultural influences of music. There are regular opportunities for students to listen to a vast range of music from composers from the Classical period, to those of African heritage to celebrating female composers and more.

2. What is the 'big picture' in Music?

The ‘big picture’ outlines how the Big Ideas and areas of knowledge of each subject fit together:

The Big Ideas of Music feature in every lesson, every day and are the three key components of musical understanding:

• Performance – the ability to play an instrument/sing in an expressive and skilful way, and to develop a sense of musicality and co-ordination when playing.
• Analysis and aural skills – to train the ear to listen for key features and recognise why and how music is written, based upon the elements of music.
• Composition – the skill to create music, following basic rules in order to produce work that can be understood by everyone, and create a structured and coherent emotional response.

There are four key areas of knowledge which are necessary to become a subject expert in Music:

1. Conceptual understanding: That our students build declarative knowledge (knowledge that) about:
   • musical theory
   • the history of music through the ages
   • past and present composers and musician

2. Procedural fluency: That our students build procedural knowledge (knowing how to), allowing them to:
   • sing
   • compose and perform music on an instrument of their choice
   • critically review and evaluate differing pieces of music

4. Disciplinary knowledge: that our students build the practices of musicians
5. Language: that our students gain fluency in reading music notation

Our music curriculum is based around these three big ideas, as they are the key components to understanding and enjoying music as a subject. Every lesson there is the opportunity to listen to and create music through music technology and traditional instrument-based projects. These three big ideas are linked together, as it is difficult to understand one without the other, particularly composition, which requires both the knowledge and understanding of musical theory, alongside practical skills, to be done successfully.

3. What does knowledge look like in Music?

4. What do we teach and when?