Music

Music Curriculum Intent 2023 – 2024

Intent

Music is an art form that we all have contact with as part of our daily lives and is a valuable outlet for expression. The studying of music allows students to learn about team work, problem solving through practice and improvement, and gain an understanding about the elements of history and other cultures that surround the music they are learning about.  Music is both a rewarding and challenging discipline that will allow students to build perseverance, communication skills, motor skills (through the playing of instruments), computing skills, confidence, and creativity. Music can lead to many opportunities and different career pathways outside of the main performance and composition ideals. These include; Sound Production, Music Reviewers, Music Therapists, Arts Management, tour managers and Event organisers.

The overarching concepts for Music at Shaftesbury School are:

• Practical skills
• Listening and evaluation Skills
• Theoretical musical knowledge
• Performance Skills
• Collaboration
• Perseverance
• Communication
• Creativity 
• Computing skills through specialised music software

Implementation

As a subject it is separated into three disciplines: Performance, Composing, and Listening & Appraising. At KS3 the three elements are taught holistically to allow students to build upon these skills in an integrated way. The curriculum allows for a wide range of interest and provides experiences with a variety of specialist equipment. We have a specialist music technology room equipped with Macs for students to use, a separate recording studio and live room, and a practical room with keyboards and a variety of other instruments available for the students’ use.  Students will gain skills in all three disciplines with termly performances and evaluation-based assessments on their current topic of learning, alongside appraisal and listening assessments. By the end of their time in KS3 they will be able to play and perform on at least one instrument and understand how to read music written for those instruments. This will mean that they can carry forwards these skills into later life if they wish. Each topic learned is linked to the cultural and historical context allowing them a rich knowledge of different areas. Through performance and articulating the meaning behind music, students will gain experience of key life skills such as public speaking, working with others, and cognitive analysis and understand which in turn will build on their cultural capital and knowledge.

Literacy Implementation

The school wide focus on literacy can be found in;

• Analysis of song lyrics and their link to the music
• Looking at the language used in music reviews
• Written justification of their compositional choices
• Long answer questions as part of the GCSE

Year 7			Year 8		Year 9
Term /Unit	Topic Title	Intended Outcomes	Topic Title	Intended Outcomes	Topic Title	Intended Outcomes
1	World Music 1: Drumming	Introduction to basic elements of musicality & performing together as an ensemble. Students will start to aurally recognise different musical patterns and textures, and be able to create their own. They will be introduced to the context of music in a different culture. H/A students can lead their groups and act as the master drummer.	Music building Bricks (rhythms)	Students recap skills from unit 3 focusing on rhythmic notation and piano skills. They build on this knowledge by learning about time signatures and rhythmic devices such as ostinatos and syncopation. They will also increase the complexity of their rhythmic notation knowledge by writing their own and practising rhythmic dictation. H/A students will be able to use more complex rhythms and play contrasting rhythms in the right/left hand.	World Music 2: Samba	Students will learn about the cultural context of Samba and its origins. They will build on their previous work on rhythms and drumming patterns by working together as a group to create Samba pieces. They will increase the complexity of their playing by including more challenging rhythmic concepts such as playing cross rhythms and regular syncopations. They will also become more familiar recognising those features when notates.
2	Singing	Continuing to build on musicality and ensemble skills through group singing, and incorporating elements of pitch and harmony into the learning. Students will also practice how to hold a musical line against other parts. There will be links with science and PE by looking into how to correctly warm up our bodies, as well as learning how music and singing specifically can impact our health and brains.	Piano Skills 2	Students build on previous keyboard units with increasing complexity involving hand placement variations and increasing use of left hand. They will also recap pitch notation and build on this by looking at the bass clef, and the use of accidentals and how to play sharps/flats.  H/A students (or students who already play piano will bring in a piece they are working on and create a practice diary and schedule to showcase their development.	Music Theatre (performance)	Students build on their instrumental skills by learning to read chord charts for both guitar and keys, as well as drum notation, as well as learning to basic patterns on these instruments. They will apply their knowledge about chord formation from the previous unit to realise the patterns in their pieces. Students will build on ensemble and performance skills and perform their outcomes to the class at the end of the unit.
3	Piano skills 1- The theory behind music (keyboard skills)	Introduction to notation and keyboard skills. Working towards building and improving dexterity on Keyboards, and recognising rhythmic and pitch notation. This will allow students to take on more challenging performance tasks in future modules. H/A students (or students who already play piano will bring in a piece they are working on and create a practice diary and schedule to showcase their development.	Minimalism (composition)	Students will look at different compositional devices that can be used as a form of rhythmic and melodic development. They will apply this through composing their own piece based on this genre. They will look at similarities to Gamelan and the context behind gamelan (world music).	Classical Variations (composition)	Building on previous units looking at melodic and rhythmic development, whilst linking it with harmony skills that have been learnt in previous units. Students will create their own set of variations on a theme combining all of the skills they have built in composition in previous units. They will also work on aural recognition through listening exercises.
4	Introduction to the orchestra	Students will learn about the different instruments and their families. They will also learn about how to select sonorities for certain pieces and write idiomatically for an instrument. They will also be introduced music tech software and start to compose their own pieces.	Jazz/Blues	Introduction to key elements of Jazz and blues music. They will learn about how to improvise on a set scale and create their own blues pieces. They will build their independence and ensemble skills by working in groups to create their pieces. They will learn about the cultural and historical impact and context of the blues creating links with history, and English through the writing of lyrics.	Rock and Pop (theory and history)	Recapping and linking to previous topics looking at chords, and Jazz and Blues, students will learn about common chord progressions and how they are used in different songs. They will learn the musical elements of popular music. They will also learn about how pop music can be used as a tool to reflect political and cultural issues of the time they are written.  They will discover how composers write idiomatically for voice and apply their previous knowledge of melodic and rhythmic development to writing a song. They will also learn about the theory behind chords and how diminished/augmented/major/minor and how these sounds can alter the mood of a piece. H/A students will apply this to their compositions.
5	Music and Space (sonorities and performance)	Students will build on their knowledge of instruments and sonorities by looking at how composers create music for a certain theme (space). They will learn about the context of different pieces and link them with historical events. They will learn further about the elements of music and how they are used in pieces. They will further build on their ensemble skills from unit 1 & 2 by learning pieces with independent lines, this time on different instruments (keyboards, guitars, drums & instruments that students play).	Film Music (history, theory and performance)	Building on their previous knowledge of sonorities and how the different elements of music can link to certain themes, students will discover how composers write music to accompany action on screen. They will build on their performance skills by learning to play famous leitmotifs, as well as analyse how those leitmotifs link musically to the character/idea they’re portraying. They will learn the history of film music, and how it has developed over time and its links to classical composers.	Rock and Pop  (performance)	Students will build on ensemble and instrumental skills with an increase in complexity from previous units to create a performance of a pop song. They will be able to plan a rehearsal schedule, and evaluate their practices and performances.
6	Music and Space 2 (Music Technology)	Continuing to build on music technology skills from unit three, students will explore how to use effects and automations to increase the musicality of a composition. They will also apply the knowledge of musical elements discovered in the previous term to create their own composition.	Film Music (Composition)	Students will apply the knowledge from the previous unit by creating their own film music compositions to accompany a clip. They will also build on their music tech skills from previous units incorporating the use of effects, automations, samples and manipulation of MIDI.	World Music 3 (Indian Music)	Students will be introduced to music from different areas of the globe. They will learn about the context and meaning behind the music and how the practice differs to our own through listening, composing, and performing.

Students rotate topics every half term. These topics consist of 6-8 lessons per rotation based on a 40 week program.

The National Curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:
• Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music.
• Be taught to sing, create and compose music.
• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated.

KS4

We teach the OCR Music GCSE. Through this, students learn about 4 key areas of study; The concerto through time, Film and Video Game music, World music, and Pop Music. This creates a broad depth of knowledge of many different genres, as well as teaching the historical and cultural context around each area. We teach these topics by combining theoretical knowledge and appraisal (listening and evaluating) skills with practical application of these skills through compositions or performances in each of these genres. As part of the course, they have two examined compositions, one of which is ‘free’ and they choose their style and genre, and the other is responding to a set brief provided by the exam board. Additionally, they have two performance, one ensemble and one solo which build on the performance practiced gained in KS3.