Music
At St Mary’s, we believe that in everything, we should do it to the best of our abilities. For every child we want Health and Happiness, Excellence, Aspirations, Resilience and Togetherness: that is at the HEART of everything we do. This is mirrored by our Music Curriculum, which is planned progressively and in a cyclical manner revisiting key skills and knowledge so that pupils can reach their full potential.
The National Curriculum 2013 states:
‘Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon’.
Wider Engagement
Alongside formal Music sessions, all pupils engage in a number of supplementary music sessions that aid the development of their knowledge and skill, including:
- A weekly singing collective worship (a range of musical hymns and songs are learnt, rehearsed and performed across the year)
-Composer of the fortnight (Shared across weekly worships and there is an eclectic programme of music shared with pupils during collective worships, which includes information about the genre and composer)
- An offer of peripatetic music lessons through the WEMA.
-Whole class ukulele for all children in years 4, 5 and 6 each year.
- All KS2 children learn the glockenspiel, ensuring they can read and follow music when leaving primary school.
-Children have the opportunity to take part in school performances such as: the Nativity, Harvest services, Key Stage 2 end of year production, and the leavers service which parents/carers are invited to watch.
-An offer for pupils to take part in Dance Umbrella, across KS1 and KS2, and perform at The Forum in Bath.
-An offer for KS2 pupils to perform in the Young Voices choir in either Birmingham or London, every other year.
-There are also a range of opportunities for performing outside of school such as: Voices for Life - through the Stardust Project and performing for the Queen at Bath Abbey.
Every year, all children take part in a whole school musical. In EYFS and KS1, this is a nativity and in UKS2, a whole school musical is performed at the end of the year: In 2024 this was the Wind and the Willows performed on our very own school grounds, in 2023 it was Stone Age Rocks and in 2022 Robin and the Sherwood Hoodies, both performed at Writhlington Secondary School. All children sing in a group and perform to an audience, with opportunities for solo performances in all Key Stages, as well as percussion accompaniments.
Enrichment opportunities, developing cultural capital, are also an important part of our musical offer, with children visiting the theatre (in 2022, the Pantomine at Bath Theatre Royal to watch Aladdin) as well as musical recitals (musical performances at the local Secondary School and concerts at St Mary’s. most recently Juno Duo, a duo who exposed the children to how music can tell stories). Music is a key area for enrichment and we encourage as many children as possible to take part in musical activities outside of music lessons.
The Young Voices performances are also a highlight for our singers, seeing children performing in the world’s largest children’s choir – something we see as an importance offer in a small school, we aim to offer this experience to children every other year. Children eligible for the pupil premium are always offered a space on this exciting experience. Please see below a report of our Young Voices experience shared by the Chair of Governors.