Intent

At Danesholme Junior Academy, our music curriculum provides children with an engaging, encouraging and expressive experience, giving them the opportunity to perform, compose, listen to and evaluate different musical styles, genres and traditions, as soloists or as an ensemble. Children are encouraged to be actively involved in using and developing their singing voices, using body percussion and whole body actions, and learning to handle and play classroom instruments effectively to create and express their own and others' music, through a range of whole class, group and individual activities. Danesholme Junior Academy aims to foster a love for music, building experience and self-confidence whilst developing an understanding of the interrelated dimensions of music: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.   

Implementation

Fulfilling the aims for musical learning stated in the National Curriculum, children at Danesholme Junior Academy are taught to:  

• Play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression 

• Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the interrelated dimensions of music 

• Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory 

• Use and understand staff and other musical notations 

• Appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians 

• Develop an understanding of the history of music.

We use Charanga Musical School, supported by NMPAT (Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust), which maps our music teaching across the school with clear progression and engaging content that matches the requirements of the National Curriculum.

Alongside our music lessons, different year groups put on performances through the year which include opportunities to sing and perform for an audience.