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.
At Cromwell Academy we align with the aims of the National Curriculum but also go further to ensure that our musicians experience a breadth of different musical experiences across a range of instruments, enabling them to make informed decisions about the type of musician they would like to be and providing a crucial stepping stone into the creative arts.
This is why, at Cromwell, music is not only taught as a discreet discipline but also provides valuable learning opportunities across the whole curriculum: from singing and chanting songs to support knowledge acquisition, learning rhymes to support vocabulary and chanting key concepts in maths. The possibilities are endless.
We recognise that engagement with music not only builds skill, pride and confidence, but also supports the development of communication and language, positive mental health, creativity, discipline, coordination and memorisation, as researched by the NAfME.
Our curriculum is designed and sequenced to ensure that learning builds on prior learning lesson by lesson, term by term and year on year. Children gain a firm understanding of what music is through appraising, singing, performing, evaluating, analysing and composing across a wide variety of periods, styles, traditions, and musical genres. We are committed to ensuring children understand the value and importance of music in the local and global context, and are able to use their musical skills, knowledge, and experiences to contribute to the wider community. We view our pupils as key contributors to the music world and prioritise performing for the local and wider community.