Led by Clair Pollitt
Our School Vision
The whole school community at Lawley have high expectations for our children, and strive to ensure they leave school as confident, polite and independent young people, with the appropriate skills, values and learning to become successful in whatever their future will be. We aspire to instil in all our children a desire to never stop learning and to have the courage to succeed in whatever they do, across all areas of school life and beyond. At Lawley we are ‘Planting the seeds, growing the future.’
Intent
At Lawley Primary School, we believe that Music is a universal language that can inspire and enthuse our pupils as it embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. We provide opportunities for all children to become independent and confident performers through singing, playing, composition and active listening across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians. Through our termly units of work we aim to address the core skills, knowledge and concepts of music whilst understanding music's positive contribution to their lives and wider society.
Implementation
At Lawley Primary School we have detailed progression maps to support our planning and delivery of music. Our teachers use materials from the Charanga Musical School Scheme, written specifically for the National Curriculum, to plan and teach the skills and knowledge from our progression maps. The spiral design of the units allows children to revisit and build on previous knowledge and skills in order that know more, can do more and remember more in their musical learning. Each unit provides opportunities for singing, listening, playing and performing, improvising and composing whilst developing notational skills.
Pupils are encouraged to value social and cultural diversity through musical experiences. Our lessons ensure a wide and diverse range of listening and appraising experiences for the children.
Music Enrichment Opportunities:
Young Voices – the largest school choir in the world!
We have an annual music enrichment visit to Young Voices each year. Our Year 5 pupils will be taking part this year. The Young Voices experience is not simply a children’s choir concert, these are the largest children’s choir concerts in the world. Our children perform alongside 5,000-8,000 other children as a single choir to capacity audiences of family and friends at Resorts World Arena, Birmingham. They perform with a live band, a professional conductor and alongside incredible artists.
This project provides the perfect vehicle for children to rehearse, learn and perform a broad range of songs from different musical styles with a good sense of ensemble and performance.
Last year we were particularly excited to be performing with Heather Small and the performance was recorded for a charity single ad released March 2023.
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
This year, our year 2 pupils had the fantastic opportunity to visit Symphony Hall in Birmingham and experience the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with their special concert for KS1 pupils. Watch this space for updates on the opportunities coming in the next academic year!
Rock Steady
Lawley Primary works in conjunction with the Rocksteady Primary Programme to offer all children in our school the opportunity to participate in this music experience. It is proven to progress musicianship, confidence and teamwork skills with no prior experience necessary. Rocksteady Band Leaders are extensively trained musicians who know how to inspire a life-long love of playing music. Children can choose from the electric guitar, keyboard, drums or vocals and enjoy playing in a happy, supportive environment with their friends. With termly concerts, children are able to perform to peers, teachers and parents with the rest of their band. Rock Steady is an extra-curricular opportunity at an affordable cost for parents/carers.
As part of our long standing relationship with Rocksteady, Lawley Primary School has been pioneering a full year group project where every child is a member of a band and participates in the full experience with no cost to parents. Our Year 4 pupils have just completed their year of the project and in the academic year 2023-24, our year 3 pupils will be taking part in the project.
Developing Instrumental Skills at Lawley
Alongside our Rocksteady project in year 3, we are now working with Telford and Wrekin Music to deliver whole class instrumental tuition in Year 4 to further develop our pupils' instrumental skills. All pupils in Year 4 for the academic year 2023-24 will have weekly class woodwind tuition from a specialist instrumental teacher.
Following from this experience in Years 3 and 4, our Upper Key Stage 2 pupils will continue their instrumental tuition with recorder tuition through their class music.
Individual Instrumental Music lessons
The children have the opportunity to access to a variety of instruments with peripatetic teachers from the Telford and Wrekin Music Service. This is an extra-curricular opportunity at an affordable cost for parents/carers.
Please see the application form under Music documents for more information.
Impact
We measure the summative progress made by our children by recording and viewing performances and assessing this against our knowledge and skills progression maps. Throughout lessons, we regularly assess the children through observations of their ability to complete musical tasks independently. Our music subject leader monitors the quality of the teaching of music through pupil voice, lesson monitoring and live recordings.
The impact of this curriculum ensures that by the time the children leave Lawley Primary School, they will have developed strong musical skills and knowledge and will be enthused and excited to continue their musical learning into adulthood.
