Abbotswood Primary School

Together We Aim High, Believe and Achieve

Being a Musician

Being a Musician at Abbotswood!

Musician Curriculum Rationale - Intent:

At Abbotswood, we believe that music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. We aim to foster a love and appreciation of music and help children to develop the skills necessary to express themselves musically.

Studying music helps to increase children's self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As children progress through Abbotswood, they will learn to critically engage with music, create their own compositions and perform various pieces of music from across the musical canon.

At Abbotswood, we want children to enjoy their music lessons work as a composing team and cherish the memories made and embrace the musical opportunities they are presented with.

How are we Musicians at Abbotswood? - Implementation:

Class teachers are in charge of delivering weekly music lessons in the classroom. At Abbotswood, we use the Charanga Model Music Curriculum School Scheme - which provides our teachers with week-by-week lesson for each year group in the school. We also aim to, where possible, link our musical learning with our enquiries, allowing us opportunities to explore many cultures and musical styles! Additionally, we explicitly teach inter-related dimensions (pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations) through warm-up and interactive activities throughout the year.

The Charanga scheme provides lesson plans, assessment, clear progression and engaging and exciting whiteboard resources for every lesson. Our music scheme is based on:

Listening and appraising
Musical activities - creating and exploring
Singing and performing

Children will also have the opportunity, throughout the year, to access musical instruments (such as glockenspiels and ukuleles) during lessons, as well as developing confidence in their vocal abilities. We also have a partnership with WEMA (West of England Music and Arts) and Rocksteady Music School. These educational platforms provide opportunities for students to perform in large ensembles or as a band, as well as listen, appraise and work with professional musicians.

Charanga and Abbotswood Primary Model Music Curriculum:

How do we assess music? - Impact:

Here at Abbotswood, we assess our musicians through: observing music lessons; noticing the children's enjoyment and originality during performances; questioning pupils and teachers to determine understanding of key vocabulary and, finally, by assessments through the Charanga Scheme. This assessment is used at the end of each term to track progress and attainment. As children move through the school, the key skills expected of our musicians are shown and increase with confidence - they create, perform, improvise, analyse and evaluate..

Throughout the year, we work towards the Charanga Scheme of Work, as well as a development plan, to ensure a wide range of musical techniques are being accessed by all children at Abbotswood. This Music Development Plan (see attachments below) is an annual report, written to review the effectiveness of the music curriculum and opportunities at Abbotswood.

The subject leader (Miss James), as well as SLT, monitor the teaching of music through pupil and teacher conferencing, observing lessons and looking at end of unit work produced. Extra-curricular musical experiences are also observed and recorded.

How else are we Musicians at Abbotswood?

Outside of music lessons, we offer the children the opportunity to take part in various musical events. Miss James runs a choir from term one to term four! The Abbotswood choir always look forward to opportunities to perform to the public. In the past, we have visited Stanshawe's Nursing home to sing Christmas carols to the residents, as well as performed at Yate Shopping Centre and St Nicks Church in Yate! We have also been fortunate to have had specialist music teachers visit the school, to run music workshops with our children.

At Abbotswood, we also have a weekly singing assembly which is run by Miss James. There is nothing better than hearing the voices of children ringing through the school! The songs learnt during singing assembly are then performed to all teachers during the final assembly of the term!

In the run up to Christmas, Year 6 take part in a celebration at St Michael's Centre (Stoke Gifford), where they perform with several other schools, as well as a live orchestra! Previously, this has taken place at Clifton Cathedral in Bristol.

Children at Abbotswood are given the opportunity to perform at various stages of the school year. KS1 and EYFS take the lead with Christmas celebrations, singing both traditional and modern songs. Year 5/6 round off the school year with their end of year play. In previous years, the productions have been: School-O-Vision Song Contest (2024), I'm an 11-year-old, Get Me Outta Here (2023), School Daze (2022), The X Factory (2019), Pirates of the Curry Bean (2018) and Ali Baba and the Bongo Bandits (2017).

As the academic year progresses, we hope to increase the profile of music even further at Abbotswood and encourage the musical development and confidence of our children. We aim to do this by bringing in specialist teachers, taking part in music festivals and inviting parents in for regular concerts/performances at key points in the academic year. We currently are lucky enough to be working with Rock Steady, giving children the opportunity to learn multiple instruments and perform as a band!

If you have any questions regarding the provision of music at Abbotswood, please contact Miss Emily James.