Curriculum Intent
Music is one of the most vital pleasures in life, it can change your mood, inspire or excite you, motivate you or simply leave you feeling better. It taps into the other side of your brain and gives you a chance to discover new and creative talents. Learning music at King’s teaches you to be an analytical listener, a leader, a performer and a composer. I believe all students should love their music lesson; it is a chance for them to work constructively and collaboratively developing their musical knowledge and skills. We want our music students to be confident and daring, brave and bold. We want to see all our students enjoying making music in whatever capacity, and learning how to express themselves through this artistic medium.
Students will learn how to analyse and evaluate a range of set works, exploring tonality, harmony, structure, melody, tempo, metre, musical and harmonic devices. Students will be able to successfully apply their knowledge and understanding of these aspects in their own work. They will be able to use musical language with confidence. They will be able to listen to, describe and analyse unfamiliar music and apply melodic dictation. They will develop excellent performing skills which they can execute in a variety of settings with confidence. Students will be able to write highly original compositions, including a pop song and a song from a musical using a motif.
Curriculum Implementation
Students will be taught to:
- play and perform confidently in a range of solo and ensemble contexts using their voice, playing instruments musically, fluently and with accuracy and expression
- improvise and compose; and extend and develop musical ideas by drawing on a range of musical structures, styles, genres and traditions
- use staff and other relevant notations appropriately and accurately in a range of musical styles, genres and traditions
- identify and use the inter-related dimensions of music expressively and with increasing sophistication, including use of tonalities, different types of scales and other musical devices
- listen with increasing discrimination to a wide range of music from great composers and musicians
- develop a deepening understanding of the music that they perform and to which they listen, and its history
Key concepts
- Performing
- Composing
- Listening
- Appraising
- Understanding
Links to Key Stage 2
We note that there are huge differences in student’s Key Stage 2 curriculum diet. However, students at Key Stage 2 are generally taught to use their voices and play musically. The Key Stage 3 RET Music curriculum extends these skills to encompass performance skills in voice and instruments by developing and developing technical and performance skills and in an understanding of the music. Pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations are considered at Key Stage 2. The RET Key Stage 3 curriculum builds on this by extending creative composing and more in depth, regular creating and composing. Our aim is to develop a culture and foster a love for music.
Relationship to the wider Key Stage 3 Curriculum
There are extensive links with Drama, English and History departments. Our schools engage in cross curricular projects to contextualise music; to present and perform to audiences. In some of our schools there are links to geography and technology as students create instruments and study music and geographical movement from other cultures at Key Stage 3. There are links to dance in delivering performance, to art in terms of the similarity of vocabulary and to ICT as students begin to use tailor made computer programs to create music.
Links to KS4
All of the skills practiced at KS3, are represented, assessed and developed in Key Stage 4. KS3 is a natural progression. Where option numbers and staffing permits, students can choose between a traditional GCSE path and a vocational RSL path. This is also dependent upon their musical background (whether they partake in music lessons e.g. peripatetic outside lessons).
Extra Curricular Experience
Irrespective of background we encourage all students to take part in our extra curricular music offer. This includes peripatetic lessons and groups that meet before and after school and during lunch times. Examples of our offer include:
- Orchestra
- School choir
- Stage band