Music at Ravenswood
At Ravenswood our Music curriculum embraces and celebrates the cultural diversity embodied within our school community that we are so proud of. We believe that high quality music provision offers our children the opportunity to shine within and beyond school and contributes to their social and cultural awareness as well as supporting and developing their skills within the field of Performing Arts.
Our music curriculum ensures that our pupils are exposed to quality music teaching, where they learn the skills and knowledge needed to become confident performers, composers, and listeners. Pupils are introduced to music from all around the world and across generations, teaching them to respect and appreciate the musical diversity of different traditions and communities and understand how music has developed and evolved over time and in different places.
At Ravenswood, we invite musicians and music teachers into school to provide our pupils with opportunities that go beyond the classroom and enrich their knowledge and experience. Through music, our pupils develop transferrable skills such as teamwork, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and presentation and performance skills.
We use the Kapow Primary Scheme for Music to support teaching and enable children to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum. The scheme takes an holistic approach to musical learning, in which the following strands are woven together to create engaging and enriching experiences:
- Performing – including singing and the ability to play tuned and untuned instruments
- Listening and responding to music
- Composing and improvising music - including how music can be written down
- The History of Music - including its cultural context
- The inter-related dimensions of music (pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure).
The scheme’s spiral curriculum ensures that previous skills and knowledge are revisited and built upon. Children make progress by tackling more complex tasks and by doing simple tasks better. They develop an understanding and knowledge of the history of music, staff and other musical notations, as well as the inter-related dimensions. Units in the scheme are supplemented and complimented in Key Stage 2 by optional instrumental units. These can replace single units as a whole, while still meeting National Curriculum objectives, or be used as an additional unit of music lessons to compliment or support topic work within the year group.
Nursery and Reception design their curriculum around the expectations of the EYFS framework and music fits into the Expressive Arts and Design strand of the latter. These pupils experience whole class and small group activities when appropriate and have continuous access to instruments during child-initiated activities.
Music is timetabled weekly from Year 1 onwards. Children across the school have access to a designated Music Room which has a wide range of instruments available for all ages.
Ravenswood is lucky to have so many talented teachers who use their expertise and time to engage and enrich the children in opportunities for music beyond the classroom. These include:
- Weekly singing assemblies in KS1 and KS2.
- musical instrument clubs (we currently offer trumpets and guitar)
- The Ravenswood Band (for talented musicians)
- Musical Evening for families and friends
- Key Stage 1 choir
- Key Stage 2 choir
- Scottish Opera in Year 4
- Christmas shows.
- City Hall singing event with Ouseburn Learning Trust schools
- “The Great Ravenswood Get-Together”, a summer concert performed with staff and pupils for Ravenswood families and friends.