Music

Vision Statement and Curriculum Intent

At Stock, we believe music is a powerful way for every child to let their light shine. Our music curriculum provides opportunities for all pupils to explore, create and perform, enabling them to develop confidence, creativity and a lifelong love of music.

Through high-quality musical experiences, children develop affinity with music by listening to, appreciating and engaging with a wide range of musical styles, cultures and traditions. We encourage pupils to discover their own musical voice and build a sense of belonging through shared musical experiences such as singing, composing and performing together.

We inspire pupils to aspire by nurturing their curiosity, creativity and confidence in music. Children are supported to take pride in their progress, challenge themselves musically and develop resilience as they learn new skills.

Through practice and meaningful opportunities to perform, pupils are supported to achieve, developing the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to grow as musicians. By celebrating every child’s musical journey, we ensure that all pupils feel valued and empowered to express themselves.

Pupils build musical skills through singing, playing tuned and untuned instruments, improvising, composing and listening and responding to music. They develop an understanding of the historical and cultural context of the music they encounter and learn how music can be notated.

The Stock music curriculum also supports the development of transferable skills, including teamwork, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and presentation and performance abilities. These skills are integral to pupils’ development as learners and have wide application in their lives beyond school.

Implementation

Each class is taught music once a week. In addition to this we have a school choir, Rocksteady and peripatetic individual music tuition on offer to all children.

Our curriculum is a spiral curriculum model, ensuring that pupils revisit and develop their understanding of key themes and concepts as they progress. This approach allows them to make meaningful connections, reinforce their learning and achieve mastery over time.

Revisiting key concepts – pupils encounter the same ideas multiple times throughout their education, with each revisit adding more complexity.

Progressive depth – concepts are not just repeated but expanded upon, helping pupils to make connections and develop a richer understanding over time.

Knowledge retention – regular exposure to key ideas strengthens memory and prevents knowledge from being forgotten.

Skill development – pupils refine and apply their skills in different contexts, improving their ability to think critically and solve problems.

Adaptive learning – by building on prior knowledge, the curriculum meets pupils at their current level and supports all learners, including those who need extra reinforcement and those who are ready for greater challenges.

Lesson structure

Our music lessons follow this typical model:

Recap & recall

Each lesson begins with a short activity revisiting prior learning. This helps reinforce key knowledge, activate long-term memory and create connections between past and new learning. Recap and recall activities are varied to keep the start of the lesson engaging and fun while still supporting active recall.

Attention grabber

A short, engaging activity designed to hook pupils into the new learning in the lesson. This could be a thought-provoking question, a quick investigation or an interactive discussion to spark curiosity and enthusiasm for the topic.

Main event

The core part of the lesson, where pupils engage in activities that develop their understanding of the learning objective. This includes a mixture of teacher modelling, guided practice and independent or collaborative tasks tailored to support all learners.

Wrapping up

A final reflective activity that consolidates learning. This could involve reviewing the success criteria, discussing key learning or applying knowledge in a different context to assess understanding and encourage deeper thinking.

Impact

The impact of our music curriculum is that pupils develop confidence, creativity and a lasting love of music, enabling them to truly let their light shine. Through rich musical experiences, children build an affinity with music by exploring, listening to and appreciating a wide range of styles and traditions. They are encouraged to aspire as musicians, developing resilience, curiosity and confidence through singing, performing and creating music together. As they progress, pupils achieve by developing secure musical knowledge, skills and understanding, enabling them to perform with confidence, express themselves creatively and take pride in their musical journey.

Types of Knowledge

The Music research review states that pupils learn in Music by acquiring three types of knowledge: Tacit knowledge, Procedural knowledge & Declarative knowledge.

Tacit knowledge (‘knowing intuitively’)

Procedural knowledge (‘knowing how’)

Declarative knowledge (‘knowing that’)

Much of the knowledge gained in music learning is gained through experience with music and informal listening, not through direct instruction. Tacit knowledge can be both substantive and disciplinary and includes:

Developing a natural sense of rhythm and melody, demonstrated by an ability to clap along to the pulse of the music.

Learning how to hold instruments through hands-on experience.

Understanding pitch and tone in singing through practice and imitation.

Instinctively move to music, showing an understanding of rhythm and expression through their bodies.

Understanding that music can evoke feelings by listening and reacting to different types of music.

Pupils have many opportunities to develop this tacit knowledge throughout the curriculum. In EYFS (Reception) and KS1, pupils are encouraged to explore instruments, sound and emotions. As they develop musically, this tacit knowledge is refined with more explicit instruction.

Tacit knowledge is most often developed in the ‘Listening and evaluating, ’Creating sound’ and ‘Improvising and composing’ strands, where pupils develop an intuitive understanding of music.

Playing music is a skill; to be able to competently perform that skill, musicians undoubtedly have many elements of procedural knowledge, including:

How to hold the instrument correctly.

How to produce different sounds with the instrument.

How to read the notation in front of them.

How to play a melody in time.

There is a crossover between tacit and procedural knowledge. While some procedural knowledge may be acquired instinctively, it may also require refinement.

Procedural knowledge is most often developed in the ‘Creating sound,’ ‘Improvising and Composing’ and ‘Performing’ strands.

This is the factual information and concepts pupils learn that can be clearly stated or ‘declared’. It includes:

Being able to name musical instruments and their characteristics.

Understanding musical terminology, such as pitch, tempo, rhythm, etc.

Naming symbols used in musical notation and what they represent.

Knowing about musical styles and genres and their cultural and historical background.

Knowing about significant figures in music.

This type of knowledge is most often developed in the ‘Listening and evaluating and ‘Notation’ strands.

Research which underpins our curriculum design

Our music curriculum fulfils the statutory requirements outlined in the National curriculum (2014) and was created based on the principles outlined in the Ofsted research review series: Music. In addition, the curriculum was informed by HM Government’s National Plan for Music, which explains how to build on the Department for Education’s Model Music Curriculum (2021) to deliver high-quality music in schools.