Music Statement of Intent

Resilient        Respectful       Inspired      Curious

Musicians at Yeadon Westfield Junior School

Music is a thriving subject at YWJS with all pupils taking part in a musical activity every week. Most classes are taught by a music specialist once a week to further inspire and facilitate their musical development and curiosity.  The children all learn to sing a variety of songs from a range of styles, genres and cultures. They also have the opportunity to learn a selection of musical instruments taught by specialist teachers, such as violin, guitar, drums and keyboard. As a whole-class, pupils receive lessons for recorder and ukulele.

By engaging children in making and responding to music, we offer them opportunities

to:

• develop their understanding and appreciation of a wide range of different kinds of music so that they can find their own style and musical preferences,
• give constructive feedback on the work of their peers that teaches them respect when delivering the feedback, and resilience when listing to their peers’ comments,
• develop skills, attitudes and attributes that can support learning in other subject areas and that are needed for life and work, for example listening skills, the ability to concentrate and follow instructions, creativity and curiosity, intuition, aesthetic sensitivity and the dedication needed to master an instrument.

Each year group is taught music in 6 half-termly units.  Each unit contains opportunities to cover, in increasing depth, the main strands of the NC programmes of study for music. Each unit links songs to a thematic structure allowing children to sing, listen to, compose, perform and evaluate a wide range of musical genres across different times and cultures. 

We ensure that we incorporate technology into our music curriculum by using iPads to record and edit performances, as well as using programmes such as Charanga and Garageband to broaden their musical and ICT skills.

Extracurricular Music is popular at Yeadon Westfield Junior School with a thriving choir. As part of the Aireborough Learning Partnership Trust, our choir sings at many festivals and celebrations around the local area, such as carol singing in local residential homes, and at the ALPT celebration exhibition each summer. For many, the challenge of performing to an audience outside of the school setting builds resilience and confidence, thus preparing them for secondary school and beyond.

Haunted House Music

This half term, in Year 6, we have been looking at scary pieces of music to build up to creating our own haunted house music. We have listen to Saint-Saen's 'Danse Macabre' and Peer Gynt's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' and then created body percussion sound effects to a haunted house poem. For our final piece, we followed a graphic score to create an eerie composition. Have a listen to the work we have created both at home and in school.

Today in music, Year 5 discussed different instruments, their features and their sound by listening to musical extracts.

We talked about the organisation of orchestras and considered how families of instruments are seated together and why.

In small groups, the pupils were given pictures of each instrument and worked together to sort them into their instrument families. These were either brass, percussion, strings or woodwind.

ALPT Choir

Children from YWJS are part of the Aireborough Learning Partnership Trust Choir and were priviledged to sing at Guiseley Morrisons for the local community.

The staff, pupils and parents thoroughly enjoyed listening to the choir and Year 3 pupils performing in Sing Song Assembly. The choir performed 'show tune' songs and Year 3 performed songs about Egyptian Mummies.

"I really enjoyed singing in front of the choir, especially as my family came to watch. I wasn't nervous at all. It sounded really good as we sang in sections that overlapped." Year 5 pupil

"I got to play percussion along with the Egyptian songs. It was great fun." Year 3 pupil.

A number of pupils went to watch the Leeds Symphony Orchestra perform their Tom Oram Concert for Children. 

Olivia said, "I liked it when they played Uptown Funk. My favourite instruments are in the string section, particularly the violins."

Evelyn said, "I liked it when the lady introduced us to the different sections in the orchestra. It has made me want to play the larger instruments, such as the cello and double bass."