Music at Tiffield Academy

Our ambition at Tiffield Academy is for all children to develop a love of music.  We strive to ensure children build skills, develop confidence, communication, creativity and well-being through sensory experiences and multi-sensory learning.

Intent

Our music teaching is underpinned by the belief that all children should be able to communicate and express themselves through music, to find happiness through musical experiences, to listen attentively and feel confident when performing and sharing their ideas.  We intend for our learners to:

Build and develop communication:Providing opportunities for learners to enhance their attention to speech, providing a framework for language and offering an alternative communication method.  Music can improve the brain’s language networks and functional connectivity, making it easier for our learners to express themselves through music, through verbal and alternative communications.

Develop a love and appreciation for music: Building a passion for music that helps learners find personal fulfilment and a sense of well-being through musical experiences. 

Foster creativity and self-expression: Providing a platform for learners to express themselves, compose, and perform in ways that are meaningful to them. 

Build essential skills: Developing interrelated skills such as performing, composing, and appreciating music, while also promoting transferable skills like teamwork, communication, and creative thinking. 

Provide multi-sensory experiences: Using music to create rich and meaningful experiences, especially for pupils who learn through sensory input. This includes linking sounds with visual and tactile experiences. 

Promote an understanding of musical diversity: Exploring various genres and cultures to develop an appreciation for music as a universal language and a way to understand different parts of the world. 

Implementation

In music our intent is implemented through the following ways:

Utilising a structured but flexible program: We have implemented a music program with clear progression – Charanga Scheme.  This provides a foundation for lessons linked to the National Curriculum. From the scheme we use Everyone Can Play, English Model Music and the Original Scheme.

Adapting lessons for individual needs: Teachers use professional judgment to adapt, modify, or extend activities to meet the specific needs of all learners, ensuring every pupil can access the learning. 

Incorporating opportunities to develop communication: Music lessons provide support for language development through using rhythm, melody and structures to scaffold language for our verbal learners. This allows application of language and an increase in confidence when learners are using words in music lessons.  For our alternative communicators, music lessons serve as a proxy for language, a symbolic form of communication.  Our learners can express themselves through rhythm, tapping or creating simple music.

Incorporating diverse musical activities: Lessons include a range of activities, such as singing, playing various instruments (both tuned and untuned), composing, improvising, and responding to and appraising music. 

Providing sensory-rich experiences: Connecting musical activities to multi-sensory experiences, such as feeling the vibration of an instrument or seeing light bounce off it, to deepen understanding and engagement. 

Offering performance opportunities: Providing opportunities for performance to build confidence and allow for showcasing learning. 

Providing access to resources: Ensuring all classes have access to necessary resources, including musical instruments, sound systems, and online resources such as Charanga.

Using different programmes from the Charanga scheme allows a structured yet flexible approach to music teaching.  The Charanga scheme ensures coverage of the EYFS framework and National Curriculum, whilst allowing our approach to be adapted to the needs of our learners. 

Our learners are placed within pathway one and two or pathway three and four.  Our pathway one and two learners will access their music lessons through an informal/semi formal sensory-based, exploratory approach.  Music learning incorporates a focus on musical elements, exploration of instruments and how these can be used for expression and communication, opportunities for movement to music, sensory songs and structures to support learners in communication and language.  These focus’ have been adapted from the National Curriculum and link directly with our Tiffield Assessment Framework.  Observations from lessons and performances are used to assess learners against the Tiffield Framework.

Our pathway three and four learners will access their music lessons through a more formal learning approach, with opportunities to learn more tuned instruments and appraise different genres of music in a multitude of ways.  These music lessons are based upon the National Curriculum and allow opportunities for learners to develop their understanding and application of musical elements, compositions, performances and evaluations.  Pupils will learn to use music for self-expression and develop language and communication skills through the scaffolds and structures provided within these lessons.  Observations from lessons and performances are used to assess learners against the Tiffield Framework.

All learners have one music lesson each week that include opportunities for singing, playing instruments, composition, listening and performing.  Additionally, our local music hub, NMPAT, support our learners with instrument lessons and small group music therapy.

Impact

Through our personalised and flexible approach, our learners will demonstrate musical progress through performing, composing and discussing their own and other’s music.  Observations and performances will show an improvement in skills.  Learners will show an appreciation for music through developing their own opinions on different musical genres.  They will show an understanding of how music makes them feel.  Our learners will display increased confidence through participating, creating and performing music both collaboratively and independently.  Through our flexible, adaptable and language scaffolded lessons, learners will show an increase in communication skills and an improvement in confidence when communicating their emotions and opinions through music.  Our aim is to build a strong foundation of music in all our learners that allows them to express themselves confidently and independently both within and beyond school.