Music Intent
All children at Oakwood are engaged in high quality, weekly 1 hour long music curriculum lessons provided by specialist teachers from our partner, Discover the Music Ltd. Each year, children build upon their prior learning and broaden their knowledge using the skills: performing, composing, theory, evaluating, personal development and cultural development. Children become curious, confident and enthusiastic musicians during their musical journey at Oakwood.
In Year R, children begin to develop an understanding of the inter-related dimensions of music, such as identifying soft, loud, slow, fast, high and low sounds through storytelling, song, use of percussion instruments and improvisation.
Year 1 and 2 children study the recorder with singing, aimed to give them the foundation skills in reading traditional music notation before progressing on to advanced orchestral instruments in Year 3, including the trumpet, trombone, clarinet and guitar.
In Year 4, pupils study ukulele and singing, bringing together both skills to perform unaccompanied feature length songs including skills in unison, chords, open string and fretted melodies, whilst singing at the same time. Pupils in Year 5 travel around the world with percussive and vocal units covering Hawaii, Africa and Brazil along with modern day songs, developing their skills in rhythmic reading both in unison and multiple parts. Children in year 5 also develop skills in singing with melody and harmony parts.
In Year 6, pupils take the creative lead in creating and producing their own acoustic covers of well known songs (similar to the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge project). Pupils will explore the structure of songs and key components of instruments that form a balanced ensemble before creating their own arrangements for performance.
