Music at Darras Hall Primary School  

Intent - Purpose of teaching music at our school

The intent of music education is to foster creativity, cultural awareness, and cognitive development. Through practical and theoretical instruction, students engage in performance, composition, and analysis. The impact is broad and lasting—enhancing academic success, emotional well-being, and community involvement.

 Implementation - How music is taught at our school

We have designed our own Music Curriculum,  incorporating listening, performance, theory, and composition. We use a broad mix of instruments and resources, including classroom percussion, djembe drums, recorders and keyboards, as well as developing our digital software to include music technology. 

All children across KS1 and KS2 have an hour a week of music, taught by either our Director of Music or our music specialist teacher, this includes a weekly singing assembly. Our curriculum lessons offer practical opportunities to play, sing, compose and perform, along with more theoretical knowledge of musical notation. We build a knowledge of the history of music through composers and linking learning in history. 

We offer through the year several musical extra curricular activities, including a KS1 choir, KS2 choir, school band and the opportunity to perform as the Pele Trust Orchestra and Choir.  We offer regular termly performance opportunities for solo  and group performance through our school concerts, as well as showcasing musical talent in assemblies. Assessment is completed through performance of composition projects every term. 

A ‘Progression of Expected Skills ’ document (below),  in line with the New Model Music Curriculum 2021, is followed throughout Key Stages 1 and 2.  In this document, musical skills have been split into progression strands titled: Singing, Performing, Composing and Listening. Clear end of year expectations are set out in the document. Planned Music Topics which link to the progression document, ensures that there is progression of musical skills in each stand and throughout each year group.

Provision for learning Violin, Guitar, Trumpet, Trombone, French Horn, Flute, Clarinet, Guitar and Keyboard is also provided, for Key Stage 2 pupils, by our local music Hub, Northumberland Music service, as well as some private music teachers. Parents are required to pay for these lessons, but our school provides financial support for FSM pupils.