Strand on the Green Junior School{SECTION_MENU}
Music is more than a subject, it’s a powerful accompaniment to our lives. It sways our mood, creates the perfect ambiance and unites us as one voice. Through singing, playing, listening and performing, we embrace music at Strand as our children learn first hand about melody, rhythm, pitch and the instruments at the heart of music making. As it shapes the seasonal soundtrack to each school year, music lifts our spirits and enables every child to be part of something bigger than themselves.
Content and Progression
The Strand music curriculum blends music making with a knowledge of musical elements, styles and traditions.
Curriculum content is based on the following areas.
Singing and instrumental performance
Composition
Knowledge and appreciation of musical elements and genres, both classical and popular, contemporary and historic
Singing is at the heart of our music curriculum. It is taught and practised in lessons and refined through singing assemblies. This important aspect of provision develops children’s vocal abilities alongside their confidence and enjoyment through an expanding repertoire of increasingly challenging songs. A culture of performance means that, content wise, no two years are exactly the same - selections are governed by the particular productions taking place.
At Strand, every child is taught to play and get better at more than one musical instrument. This is achieved through an academic year spent learning a brass instrument as well as blocks of djembe tuition. In addition to the gradual development of instrumental control and range, instruction includes musical notation, playing melodies and/or rhythms, keeping time and, as skill levels grow, performing pieces of music as part of an ensemble.
Curriculum content also addresses the beginnings of composition as the final element of music making. This is achieved through the use of instruments and technology to create soundscapes, rhythms, repeating refrains and scaffolded melodies. The complexity of these tasks grows in tandem with children’s wider knowledge and experience of music.
Developing knowledge and appreciation of music is an integral part of all music lessons. For example, the use of appropriate terminology is applied within singing, instrumental and composition activities, with a particular focus on understanding notation when learning a brass instrument. In addition, children learn to listen with purpose to music so that they can identify instrumentation, rhythmic patterns, major and minor chords and begin to appreciate more of what they hear than they would alone. From classical composers to familiar contemporary tracks, children are taught about different musical genres and their characteristic features.
Music is one of our subject specialisms so it is taught by a musician, not the class teacher. Years 3, 5 and 6 are taught weekly lessons by Strand’s own music specialist.
These lessons cover all the main aspects of the music curriculum, sometimes in blocked content across a half term but often arranged in an integrated progression that develops different aspects of during the teaching sequence.
A lower (Y3/4) and upper school (Y5/6) weekly singing assembly compliments, consolidates and extends the songs taught in lessons.
In Year 4 music provision is different. In this academic year the weekly music lesson is dedicated to learning to play a brass instrument.
Lessons are taught by a member of the Hounslow Music Service.
Performance
At Strand, we have a tradition of performance going back decades. Our Christmas concert marks the beginning of the festive season in a showcase of vocal talent that includes the entire school standing together as one powerful chorus as well as every child performing in their year-group choir. Even in singing assemblies, the standard of performance reaches remarkable heights with singing in two or three parts, harmonies, lyrics in French and an array of ‘mash-ups’ that merge one song with another in a seamless transition.
After three terms of learning a brass instrument, Year 4 perform a recital for parents. Many go on to join the Hounslow Youth Orchestra, continuing to perform. Then in Year 6 there is a crescendo of increasingly polished performance, starting with the songs at our harvest charity fundraising event and culminating in an ambitious, high-quality end-of-year show.
Wider School Music
Over and above curriculum music, there is a wealth of musical provision within the school. Hounslow Music Service, our local music hub, have a team of peripatetic music teachers who work in partnership with us. They provide small group tuition for those children pursuing additional music instruments include violin, clarinet, guitar and trumpet. We have another long standing association with a rock school run during school time and have recently partnered with Pelican Music to provide piano lessons after school.
Clubs such as drumming groups and choirs led by our own music specialist offer further opportunities to pursue musical interest and develop talent. Historically our choir entertains at the school fete as well as joining with other schools in the area to perform at the Hounslow Summer Festival.
