Throughout their time at Somerford Primary School, children are provided with a high-quality music education that engages and inspires pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians. This will help to increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. Music is a unique method of communicating that can inspire and motivate children. It allows for personal expression, and it can play an important part in the personal development of pupils.

Our Music curriculum, using the Charanga scheme, is designed to progressively develop children skills in the areas of musical appreciation (listening and discussing), performance on instruments and with voice, composition and recording and evaluating musical performances. We encourage children to focus on the work of great musicians for inspiration and exploration, and to build up a repertoire of techniques and approaches that they can apply in their own compositions.

The children will have the opportunity to listen to and evaluate critically, a wide-range of music, that encompasses the great composers from history, as well as the music from modern culture. We aim to broaden the children’s perceptions and open their minds to music of the local and wider world.

Children leave our school with the confidence to express their individual creativity through a variety of musical skills. Their awareness of musicians, instruments and composers will ensure that they are able to carefully evaluate their own music, and any music they encounter; skills that will stay with them for life.

Pupils in Early Years are given opportunities to be imaginative and investigate and experience things, and have a go. They are given the freedom to freely explore resources, sing songs, make music and dance and experiment with ways of changing them. There is an emphasis on independence and self-initiated learning.

In KS1 children are taught to use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes. They will play tuned and untuned instruments  and listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music. Children will experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.  

In KS2 children are taught to play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression. They will improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music and listen with attention to detail, recalling sounds with increased aural memory. Children will use and understand staff and other musical notations and appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians. Children will develop an understanding of the history of music.

All children will have the opportunity to learn and play a musical instrument during curriculum time.

Children in year 4/5 have a first access programme for 10 weeks delivered through Soundstorm where they learn rhythms as part of a samba band. This is a fantastic opportunity and the children thoroughly enjoy it.

To support our music teaching and to provide engaging opportunities for our pupils, we often invite guests into our school. Recently we have had visits from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, a Rocksteady electronic band visit and an exciting STEM and music collaboration.

Throughout their time at Somerford, children are offered many occasions to perform. All children will have the opportunity to perform in a Priory Christmas concert, A Christmas Nativity, a samba concert and a singing concert with other schools from Christchurch at the Bournemouth Pavilion and The Regents Centre in Christchurch.

We aim for children to have had a varied and wide experience of music in their time at Somerford whilst instilling an enjoyment, appreciation and love for music.  We hope to see you soon watching your child perform at one of our school or local community musical events.