Culture of Music at Kings Heath

Kings Heath has been awarded the Music Quality Award by Services for Education demonstrating a commitment and high-quality music provision. Music is not just a subject delivered through the national curriculum but part of the ethos of our school. We have a proud tradition of having pupils that represent a strong choir led by a vocal expert. We currently have children learning a range of musical instruments and are proud to host these music lesson during the school day to provide our children with the opportunity to learn an instrument to an expert level. We also host Rocksteady bands. This is another form of peripatetic music service, which engages children in playing an instrument in a rock band. We believe that music provides rich cultural capital, and this is supported by extensive research that musical aptitude support neurological development. Children’s lessons are rotated to ensure that they do not miss the same lessons. Kings Heath funds scholarships for both Rocksteady and wider peripatetic lessons for those children who are in receipt of pupil premium and have an identified musical aptitude. Musical performances are termly and come in the form of concerts to parents and the wider school.

Through our ‘music of the month’, pupils are exposed to a range of composers and musical genres from across history and from across the world.

Music Overview

Our curriculum aims to ensure that all children 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. They will learn to sing and 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 to have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence. Children will develop their understanding of and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions of: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notation.

Key Stage 1 – Years 1 and 2

The focus for the music curriculum is to build on that of the Early Years Foundation Stage deepening children’s knowledge, understanding, confidence and ability to use their voices expressively and creatively, by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes. They will have opportunities to play tuned and untuned instruments musically. They will continue to develop their abilities to listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music. Children will also experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using inter-related dimensions of music.

Key Stage 2 – Years 3-6

In KS2 children will sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control, developing a deeper understanding of musical composition; organizing and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory. Children will play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression. There will be opportunities to improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music and to continue to develop the abilities to listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory. Opportunities will be given to use and develop an understanding of staff and other musical notations. There will also be opportunities to appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians, together with developing an understanding of the history of music.

Please see below.