Music at Hillside Primary and Nursery school promotes an excellence and enjoyment that results in a life-long love and understanding of music. We use Sing Up Music, which is based on the National Curriculum for Key Stages 1 & 2 and the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework to create a progressive curriculum for all children to enjoy and which highlights the impact music has on our lives and the world that we live in as well as our own health and wellbeing.

Singing is at the heart of our schools: it’s interwoven into school life, celebrations and the wider community.  There is a clear progression within singing across the primary age range and children experience a breadth of styles and genres. Opportunities to perform, create and collaborate are plentiful, developmental, authentic and memorable. Schools reach out and link to their wider communities through singing and music, creating compassionate, well-rounded individuals who recognise the impact music can have. 

All children have the opportunity to learn an instrument and have a high-quality experience in ensembles and as a whole class. They develop listening and collaborative skills through working together, creating, performing and celebrating their outcomes. Those children with a key interest in Music can additionally take part in our ‘Rock Steady’ programme, learning to play instruments such as the drums, keyboard, bass and electric guitar and perform them during termly concerts.

Children are taught the musical vocabulary and understanding to articulate their views and describe the music they are singing, performing, listening to and composing. They understand the way in which they can progress and build upon the skills that they have developed.

Aims

Our music curriculum aims for pupils to:

• Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians
• Learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, use technology appropriately and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence.
• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the interrelated dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

We aspire for all children to leave Hillside Primary and Nursery School as musicians.