Music

At Orion Mead Road, we make music an enjoyable learning experience. We encourage all children to participate in a variety of musical experiences through which we aim to build up their love of music, self- confidence, and sense of achievement.

Our teaching focuses on developing the children’s ability to, sing in tune and with other people, play tuned and untuned musical instruments with increasing control, fluency and expression and listen critically to a wide range of music from different periods, genres, styles, and traditions. As children progress through the school, they will increasingly understand and explore how music is created, produced, and communicated through the interrelated dimensions of music: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure, and musical notation.

Implementation

We teach music in EYFS as an integral part of the topic work covered during the year. In the Early Years, music contributes to a child’s development in the area of expressive arts and design. In Key stage 1 children are taught music by their class teacher largely in 6 half-termly blocks although some aspects of music learning are ongoing throughout the year. We use Charanga (an online resource) to support our music teaching as it is a very clear and comprehensive scheme of work which covers all the national curriculum requirements in a full and progressive way. We also link our music to the wider curriculum and what is being taught across the curriculum.

 Across the school we choose pieces of music from the Charanga Listening centre to encourage active listening to music from different genres and eras on a weekly basis. The listening centre also provides music which is selected for use in a variety of lessons and activities to create, mood, atmosphere and to aid concentration. Children throughout the school sing during our weekly assemblies. Children also sing and practise singing songs during school performances such as Harvest, Christmas and the End of Year 2 production, as well as class assemblies. At our school we teach music to all children, whatever their ability. Music forms part of the school curriculum policy to provide a broad and balanced education to all children. Assessment against the National Curriculum allows us to consider each child’s attainment and progress against expectations. We adapt our teaching to ensure that all our children’s needs are met during our music lessons. We celebrate and offer wider curriculum enrichment opportunities for children as well with additional ‘Rocksteady’ music lessons and individual instrument music lessons through BYMT.

Teachers assess children’s work in music by making informal judgements as they observe them during lessons. The attainment of each child is indicated annually in the end of year report.

Impact

Whilst in school, children have access to a varied programme, which allows students to discover areas of strength, as well as areas they might like to improve upon. The integral nature of music and the learner creates an enormously rich palette from which a student may access fundamental abilities such as: achievement, self-confidence, interaction with and awareness of others, and self-reflection. The Music curriculum at Mead Road Infant School also enables children to develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to students individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world. Children are able to enjoy music, in as many ways as they choose- either as listener, creator or performer. They can dissect music and comprehend its parts. They can sing and feel a pulse. They have an understanding of how to further develop skills less known to them, should they ever develop an interest in their lives. 

Music Development Plan 2025-2026