Music

“Music education can help spark a child's imagination or ignite a lifetime of passion. When you provide a child with new worlds to explore and challenges to tackle, the possibilities are endless..”

Why we teach your child music

Music - and singing in particular - plays a big part in life in our school. We pride ourselves on the fact that every child has the opportunity to learn how to play an instrument before they leave Wilberforce Primary and that our pupils are confident and enthusiastic performers with a love of music. 

In music lessons, we expose our children to a diverse range of high-quality music from a variety of traditions and from great composers and musicians. Children are then able to draw on this increasing aural memory to be able to excel in their musical performance in both solo and ensemble contexts. As children develop their musicality throughout their time at Wilberforce Primary, so too will they benefit from a deepening self-confidence, creativity and sense of success. A love of music is something that can stay with a child for a lifetime and continue to enrich their life and sense of well-being even after they have moved on from our school. 

What our curriculum looks like

Our music curriculum focusses on 3 key areas of progression: Singing, Composition, and Performance & Musicianship. Every year, each unit of learning will have one of these elements as the focus.

Singing

Singing lies at the heart of our curriculum, and as our children progress through the curriculum they will be challenged to sing songs with an increasing vocal range and complexity. In Key Stage 2, they will begin to learn partner songs and eventually sing rounds and simple harmonies.   

Composition  

Beginning with simple games and on-the-spot responses, children will develop their facility in combining the various elements of music so that they are able to organise and notate sophisticated musical ideas by the time they reach Years 5 & 6.  

Performance & Musicianship  

ur children will progress from using simple stick and dot notation to using and understanding staff notation in Key Stage 2. They will use notation to learn pieces of music on untuned percussion and on melodic instruments such as the glockenspiel and perform these songs in a variety of ensembles.

How we teach music

As with every subject, we recognise what makes music unique, and as a result make pedagogical choices to ensure teaching is the best it can possibly be. 

We have captured our pedagogical choice for music in our music principles which can be seen below:

1 to 1 lessons

We work with Piano Fun Club to offer 1 to 1 lessons from visiting music teachers. If you are interested in signing your child up for piano or guitar lessons, or wish to find out more, you can contact them using the information below:

How you can help your child at home:

Even without instrumental lessons, there are many ways in which you can nurture a love of music and develop musicality with your child at home: 

Take opportunities to listen to music with your child, showing your own enjoyment in this in order to help them recognise the value of music in our lives.

If you hear a piece of music, discuss it with your child. How does it make them feel? What instruments can they hear?

The Tri-Borough Music Hub list a range of local events and workshops suitable for a range of ages on their website https://www.triboroughmusichub.org/events-media/

If your child is taking instrumental lessons, then encourage them to practise at home.