Music
"Where words fail, music speaks."
Hans Christian Anderson
Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A highquality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.
Intent
The policy intends to deliver a coherent, high-quality music curriculum rooted in the 2014 National Curriculum, the EYFS Curriculum, the DfE Model Music Curriculum, and the National Plan for Music. Its aim is for pupils to know more, remember more and apply more as musicians, developing progressively sequenced skills in listening, evaluating, creating, performing, composing and notation. The curriculum identifies “Need to Know” knowledge and vocabulary to ensure clarity and progression, with high expectations supported by specialist teaching. A key intention is for pupils to develop a lifelong love of music, strengthened by cultural capital experiences such as live music, worship, and exposure to diverse genres.
Implementation
Music is taught weekly by a specialist across the full school year, following a sequential Kapow-based curriculum taught on a two-year cycle. Learning builds from EYFS through to KS2, beginning with movement, familiar songs and instrument play, and extending to notation, performance, and composition. Each unit includes “Need to Know” skills, knowledge and vocabulary, shared explicitly with pupils and revisited through retrieval practice. Lessons begin with recap, are fully inclusive, and encourage pupils to “talk like musicians” using displayed vocabulary. Teachers use formative assessment to adapt teaching, and subject leadership provides oversight, CPD, resources and curriculum monitoring.
Impact
Through structured progression and specialist teaching, pupils are expected to develop strong musical knowledge, vocabulary and skills, enabling confidence and readiness for Key Stage 3. Assessment is primarily formative, focusing on observation, discussion, and evaluating processes as well as outcomes. Long-term learning is monitored through retrieval tasks and pupil conferencing, with evidence recorded centrally to track progression. The overall impact sought is that children leave St John’s as confident, knowledgeable and enthusiastic musicians with a secure foundation for future learning.
