Music
At St Charles, music is a highly valued, integral part of our Catholic school life. We are passionate about ensuring all our children have access to transformational, enriching musical opportunities with the intention of inspiring and developing a life-long love of music, whilst also helping all to realise their musical potential.
What Music Looks Like at Charles
Music is a highly valued, integral part of our Catholic school life. We are passionate about ensuring all our children have access to transformational, enriching musical opportunities with the intention of inspiring and developing a life-long love of music, whilst also helping all to realise their musical potential.
Music is a powerful, unique form of communication that can change the way pupils feel, think and act. It brings together intellect and feeling and enables personal expression, reflection and emotional development. At St Charles we provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music and to develop the skills to listen to and critically appreciate a wide variety of musical forms.
All children are given a weekly music lesson with a music specialist teacher. These lessons foster pupils’ sensitivity to, and their understanding and enjoyment of music, through an active involvement in listening, performing, composing and appraising. There are also weekly singing assemblies which develop and extend the children’s singing skills.
In addition to curricular music, peripatetic instrumental teachers provide small group and individual tuition on a range of instruments to children from Year 1 to Year 6. St Charles has two choirs and a school orchestra which meet weekly and perform both in school and at Borough and community events.
Intent
At St Charles we are dedicated to providing an enriching and comprehensive music education that instils a lifelong passion for music in our students. Our music curriculum is carefully crafted to foster creativity, nurture talent, and develop a deep understanding of music across various cultures and genres. We aim to empower every student to express themselves through music, building their confidence, teamwork, and self-expression.
Our intent is to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and cultural awareness necessary to appreciate and engage with music in a meaningful way. Aligned with the National Curriculum, Development Matters and the Model Music Curriculum, our curriculum is designed to provide a sequential and coherent music education. It aims to ensure that every student, regardless of background or prior experience, has access to a rich and varied musical education. We believe that music is an essential part of a well-rounded education, contributing to students’ intellectual, emotional, and social development.
Implementation
To realise our music curriculum’s intent, we have partnered with Sing Education, a specialist provider of music education. Our curriculum is thoughtfully structured with half-termly units, each building upon the foundation of prior learning while introducing new concepts and challenges. This scaffolded approach ensures a logical progression of skills and knowledge, enabling students to consolidate, expand, and refine their musical abilities.
The Kodaly method, integral to our curriculum, ensures that musical concepts are presented systematically and aligned with students’ prior experiences. Our specialist music teacher facilitates lessons that are child-centred, inclusive, and foster a love for singing. These lessons are enriched with high-quality resources, instruments, and dedicated spaces for music within our school. Regular performances and recordings at the end of each half term provide students with opportunities to showcase their musical growth and articulate their learning journey.
Curriculum Impact Statement
The impact of our music curriculum at St Charles is seen in the confidence, enthusiasm and musical understanding of our pupils. Children develop a strong foundation in listening, performing and composing, and are able to reflect on and evaluate music using appropriate vocabulary.
Through a structured and inclusive approach, all pupils make meaningful progress from their starting points. They build resilience, confidence and pride in their achievements, with opportunities for greater depth for those who excel.
The breadth of enrichment opportunities ensures pupils experience music beyond the classroom, building cultural capital and broadening their horizons. Regular performances further develop confidence and a sense of identity as musicians within the school and wider community.
By the time they leave St Charles, pupils have the skills, knowledge and passion to continue their musical journey.
Enrichment and Cultural Capital
At St Charles we are committed to providing an enriching and diverse musical education that extends beyond the core curriculum. Our co-curricular music offer is designed to provide our pupils with numerous opportunities to sing and play music, fostering a lifelong love for music and enabling them to make significant progress in their musical journey.
Enrichment opportunities include:
● Performance opportunities both in and outside school for all pupils
● Auditioned and non-auditioned choirs: ‘Come and Sing Choir’, St Charles Primary School Choir, and Notting Hill Community Choir.
● St Charles Primary School Orchestra
● Individual and small group peripatetic tuition which includes ‘cello, violin, recorder, flute, clarinet, saxophone, voice and piano.
● Engagement with TriBorough Music Hub to provide children and families with additional opportunities after school, at weekends and during holidays.
Cultural Capital opportunities include:
● Free lunchtime concerts at the Royal College of Music
● Free workshops at school delivered by the Royal College of Music
● Participation in massed choral performances at the Royal Albert Hall
● Maths and Music workshops at the Royal; Albert Hall
● Performing for and engaging with local communities
● Experiencing opera performances at Holland Park with Opera Holland Park
● Large ensemble performances in a variety of venues e.g Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall, Royal Albert Hall and St John’s Smith Square.
● Music scholarship opportunities through the London Music Fund and John Lyon’s charity
Inclusion and Adaptive Teaching
At St Charles, we are committed to ensuring that all our pupils can access and succeed in Music. Our specialist music teacher and peripatetic instrumental teachers use a range of flexible and differentiated teaching strategies to ensure that all lessons remain accessible while maintaining high expectations.
These include:
● Makaton signing for songs learnt in lessons
● Pitch signalling and Kodaly hand signs used in both curricular and peripatetic lessons using parts of the body
● Very clear and scaffolded structure to each lessons to ensure all students can access the learning
● Visual curricular slides used in every lesson
● Key words and musical skills are introduced and reinforced throughout the lessons
● Use of props; scarves, beanbags, puppets and giant scrunchies to create a sensory environment which supports all learners
● Opportunities for greater depth provided consistently through differentiated musical tasks and pupil leader opportunities
How you can help at home
You can support your child’s musical learning in simple and meaningful ways:
● Dancing or moving to music to develop coordination, listening skills and a feel for the pulse
● Creating a ‘kitchen drum kit’ with pots and pans and wooden spoons!
● Playing musical statues or bumps to support listening skills
● Singing, singing, singing!
● Listening to music together of all genres and talking about how it makes you feel, what musical features you notice, what you enjoy or dislike etc
● Listening to music of all genres and clapping/tapping along with the beat. Talking about whether the music is loud or soft or a mixture of both, fast or slow, smooth and ‘spiky’ (detached) etc
● Listening to live or recorded concerts together
● Supporting your child if they are learning an instrument by establishing regular, structured ‘practice’ sessions at home
Please visit the Triborough Music Hub www.triboroughmusichub.org where you can access the virtual music school and access a wealth of information about all the other out of school musical groups and ensembles that are available.
Please refer to our music development plan for more information regarding music at St Charles