This is a summary of how our school delivers music education to all our pupils across three areas – curriculum music, co-curricular provision and musical experiences – and what changes we are planning in future years. This information is to help pupils and parents or carers understand what our school offers and who we work with to support our pupils’ music education.

Part A: Curriculum music

At Woodchurch, we pride ourselves on delivering an inclusive, diverse and aspirational music curriculum across Key Stages 3 and 4. 

Our Key Stage 3 curriculum has currently been condensed to one seventy five minute lesson every four weeks. We have carefully considered, as a department, the critical knowledge pupils need to secure to study Music at Key Stage 4 and have prioritised practical activities to ensure mastery of instrumentation. 

Our curriculum includes key elements of the National Plan for Music Education and has been informed by the Model Music Curriculum (March 2021) which offers guidance on the teaching of Music through Key Stages 1 to 3. 

Our Key Stage 3 curriculum is primarily designed to enable pupils’ creativity and to ensure engagement, whilst building foundational knowledge to enable pupils to progress and feel confident with the subject. We commence Year 7 with the exploration of key concepts such as rhythm, pitch and pulse to ensure that our pupils are able to construct mental models and develop a broad understanding of what’s needed to create and compose their own music. They also explore the art of performance through learning how to form chords to play songs. Year 8 acts as a continuation of Year 7, allowing pupils to build on the skills and knowledge they have developed during the previous year as well as introducing more key musical terms and genres including the Reggae Music and a topic covering the different Era’s of music through a new instrument (Ukulele) This year offers pupils an opportunity to explore lyric writing through our songwriting unit and music production using software such as Soundtrap to support this. 

Year 9 further builds on our offer, consolidating the  musical theory studied in Year 7 and Year 8 and introducing two further genres of Electronic Dance Music and Rap and HipHop as pupils look to consider the impact of different genres on society, exploring ideas around race and class and finding their own place with music composition. This enables students in Year 9 to have an insight into what music looks like in Y10 and beyond understanding the key musical elements and features of a style both theoretically and practically. Our entire Key Stage 3 curriculum is planned to focus solely on skills, in a way that allows our staff to be responsive about the concepts they communicate these skills through, whilst exploring key genres and elements this helps to prepare pupils for their study of Music at Key Stage 4. 

At Key Stage 4 we offer the Level 2 BTEC in Music Practice, for a total of 150 minutes a week, which allows pupils to explore a range of different approaches to the study of Music, offering them the opportunity to develop sector-specific knowledge and skills in a practical way. The qualification encourages pupils to develop their own, individual skills, proving their aptitude in music through their own, personal response to a musical brief. From there, they develop their own understanding of what it takes to work in such a competitive industry, reflecting on effective strategies for rehearsal and performance. The coursework is split into 3 components, Component 1 (30% of overall grade) focuses on genres and styles, students will have prior understanding of how to analyse a genre through topics covered in KS3. Students will create a portfolio of genres covered in lessons and will have to produce 3, 30-60 second clips within each discipline (Performance, Composition Production) linking to a selected theme by the exam board. Component 2 (30% of overall grade) In this unit pupils will be developing their skills and understanding skills within the music industry such as time management, health and safety and working with others. Through understanding these skills students will target 2 skills within 2 disciplines they would like to improve on, and will work on these in rehearsal sessions and track & capture their development over a period of time. Component 3 (40% of overall grade) (Externally Marked) students will be recreating a song in a different style for this unit. In their exam pupils will receive a list of 10 songs ranging in styles and 4 different genres. Students need to reinterpret their chosen song in the genre they have chosen. Pupils will have 16 hours of supervision with lessons to complete this.

Our offer is entirely inclusive and pupils from across our school community, including those pupils with SEND, are supported to access both our curricular and extracurricular opportunities. This year we are continuing to offer 1:1 Peripatetic Music lessons with the school day. These fully funded fortnightly peripatetic sessions will support pupils with developing their skills in either singing or learning an instrument of their choice.

Part B: Co-curricular music

This is about opportunities for pupils to sing and play music, outside of lesson time, including choirs, ensembles and bands, and how pupils can make progress in music beyond the core curriculum.

We offer a range of Music clubs every day, during lunchtime and after school and these are incredibly well attended. Our clubs range from a general music club for pupils to attend and improve on a skill of their choice, to more specific clubs for production and songwriting. Pupils participate with excitement and enthusiasm and are ambitious in their aspirations to develop as musicians. Our current school production of Grease is rehearsed after school, during drop down days and outside of the school day, including on weekends and school holidays. Other opportunities for performance in our ensembles include: 

1. Choir (pop choir)
2. School Production 
3. Annual Musical concerts 
4. Arts festival with musical performance opportunities 
5. Student led bands – with opportunities to perform at whole school events such as religious assemblies and The Big Sing
6. Primary festivals/collaborations
7. Performances in assemblies/at parental evenings/events
8. Concerts and instrumentation evenings

Pupils are also able to practise their music skills in our practice rooms at lunchtime or afterschool should they wish to. We are continuing to develop our extra-curricular offer in readiness for our application for Artsmark status.

Part C: Musical experiences

This is about all the other musical events and opportunities that we organise, such as singing in assembly, concerts and shows, and trips to professional concerts.

We offer regular opportunities for performance in our school community during lessons and during whole school and public events. We hold formal performances as outlined below: 

• Autumn term: Assemblies, Christmas concert, Peri Performance Evening
• Spring term: A Night at concert, Easter assemblies, School Production.
• Summer term: Arts showcase, primary festival performance

We are continuing to build on opportunities to perform in connection with our local music hub.

In the future

We always aim to continually build on and develop our music plan each academic year and strive to maintain a high-quality provision for our pupils. We are hoping to increase the amount of time pupils are able to access timetabled music lessons next academic year and, with increased lesson time, would look to include the teaching of new instruments.

We always aim to collaborate with pupils through communication online or in person seeking their thoughts on what they would like to be included within their music lessons to ensure participation ratio is at its highest both inside and outside the classroom.

We would like to further build on the success of this year’s peripatetic uptake and continue with this provision next academic year and potentially look to offer a performance of work completed by these pupils in this provision in Autumn term 2.

We are looking to strengthen our links in the local community, including developing our work with our local music hub, as we aim to offer more opportunities for performance and speaking to local care homes and primary schools to offer workshops of what music looks like at woodchurch and take Music ambassadors to help and assist with this.

Extra-curricular opportunities will continue to include a school production each year and we hope to include further opportunities for pupils who do not want to perform on stage but would still like to be involved the opportunity to take on a backstage role such as lighting, sound, make-up, hair or costume design, to make the most of their gifts and talents.

We are also looking to establish further opportunities for trips and other chances to collaborate with performing and creative arts subjects in our school community.

All of these events will build into our application for Artsmark status at the end of next academic year.

We are continually working to increase our range of arts experiences such as staging, inviting artists and arts practitioners into our school to deliver workshops, participating in events such as The Coram Shakespeare Schools Festival or The Big Sing and establishing a wider range of extra-curricular clubs such as drama club, art club, Music production club and much more. We will also then look to offer whole-school professional development on oracy and creative pedagogy, equipping teachers with the skills and confidence to integrate the arts into their teaching and look to visit collaborative planning sessions to help curriculum leaders work to embed creative practice within subject-specific teaching. We will also aim to develop partnerships with local artists, arts organisations, galleries, and theatres to provide pupils with further access to professional expertise and cultural experiences. Organising additional community events at school will also help to foster stronger connections with people in our local community.