Music Curriculum Statement of Intent

Music provides an all-encompassing experience, invigorating and enticing all of the senses at once.  Learning to play music is the only activity known to stimulate and utilise every part of your brain at once. ‘Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity’ (National Curriculum). Music education makes it possible to engage and inspire children to develop a love of music from all cultures and traditions, as well as their own musical skills.  

As a subject, music teaches children about the world around us, and the traditions of different cultures and societies; as well as places and times.  It also reveals where the music they listen to and love comes from and how it was created. By learning to perform individually and in groups it helps to increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement, as well as increasing their cooperation, concentration and communication skills.  As students progress, they should develop a critical engagement with Music, enabling students to perform, compose and listen with discrimination to wide range of musical cultures, genres and traditions from a large variety of great composers.

KS3

The KS3 curriculum will allow students to engage with Music both practically and theoretically, developing a range of musical skills, knowledge and techniques that will prepare students for KS4 and beyond and will also develop valuable skills to support them in all other curriculum areas.  Students will be taught practical performance and composition skills, music theory, whilst also listening and analysing music from a range of genres and styles.

KS4

Assessment:

Students at KS3 will be assessed on the 3 areas at each term.

• AO1 – Musical Making:  AO1.1 Performance in solo and ensemble situations, AO1.2 Improvising and creating music.
• AO2 – Musical Thinking: AO2.1 Using staff and other relevant notation, AO2.2 identifying and using musical dimensions and devices, AO2.3 listening with increasing discrimination to a wide range of great composers.
• AO3 – Musical Understanding: developing a deepening understanding of the music that they perform and listen to and its history.

Why?

These 'Big Ideas' were established as developing the musical skills that allow students to prepare for the future. Especially in terms of employability.

KS3 Big Ideas

• Musical Knowledge & Understanding: The ability to recall and understand musical notation and develop an understanding of how musical elements are used to different effect.
• Composing: All music from ‘nothing to something’ or ‘page to stage’ (notated) goes through a step by step journey. This journey is unique for different musicians
• Performance Skills: To communicate a meaningful and convincing performance
• Socio-Historical: All music is linked throughout time, history and traditions

Musical Knowledge & Understanding: The ability to recall and understand musical notation and develop an understanding of how musical elements are used to different effect.

ARE Year 7
Students are able to identify elements of the music they hear and identify how to read notated music:

• Identify and describe different musical elements
• Recognise and correctly identify a range of different instrumental sounds
• Describe how to read the treble clef stave
• Identify treble clef notes and basic rhythm
• Identify basic chords on ukulele

ARE Year 8
Students are able to describe the music they hear and describe how music is notated:

• Identify the musical characteristics of a variety of different styles
• Describe the music heard in a critical and musical way
• Identify bass clef notation and describe how the differences between treble & bass clefs
• Describe how you read chord diagrams: guitar/ukulele

Composing: All music from ‘nothing to something’ or ‘page to stage’ (notated) goes through a step by step journey. This journey is unique for different musicians

ARE Year 7         
Students can describe what a stimulus is and demonstrate a process through rehearsal of a given notated music or stimulus

• Explore the different rehearsal techniques required to create a notated performance
• Explore the different rehearsal techniques required to create an improvised performance
• Describe how you rehearsed for a notated piece of music or devised piece

ARE Year 8         
Demonstrate and understand how a process of a specific style of music is different to another style through rehearsal and performance

• Explore the key features of Minimalism, Jazz & Blues
• Explain how rehearsing notated music is different to rehearsing an improvised piece.
• Identify what rehearsal techniques you could use to rehearse your own performance.
• Use a variety of media to create a performance

Performance Skills: To communicate a meaningful and convincing performance
To communicate meaning, the technician must use a range of technical skills

ARE Year 7         
Students can demonstrate and articulate basic musical performance to communicate basic, but not always accurate, performance.

• Identify where your facial expression, posture, body language, gestures and levels are used in a performance
• Identify where your Pitch, Dynamics, Timbre, Duration, Texture, Form, Melody and Harmony are used in a performance
• Explore how you would use The Elements of Music to create a  composition

ARE Year 8         
Students can pick out effective skills and explain why they are effective. They can also pick out ineffective skills and explain how they could be improved.

To understand how to use a variety of instruments in different styles to communicate their emotions and intentions accurately.

• Identify where performance skills, including eye contact, body language are used in a performance.
• Identify where instrument skills, are used effectively and need to be improved.
• Explore how you would use your instrument knowledge and skills to create a performance suitable for your genre of performance.

Socio-Historical: All music is linked throughout time, history and traditions

ARE Year 7
Describe in basic terms what socio-historical means and why it is important in the music.

• Explain what society and history means.
• Identify what period of history notation was created.

ARE Year 8
Explain how what happens in history is linked to what is happening in the music.

• Explore how the slave trade influenced the development of Jazz and Blues music.
• Explore how access to materials influences the types of music communities are able to create.

ARE Year 9
Explain how the styles of music are linked through their history and traditions using society and practitioner’s culture.

Art Statement of Intent

At Yate Academy, the Art department is committed to ensuring that all students from KS3 and KS4 are exposed to a World Class Curriculum that offers them the opportunity of first class teaching and learning. A curriculum which offers full coverage of the vital key skills and knowledge needed in order to achieve high end outcomes at GCSE and to develop a love of the arts and the cultures that surround them. Art, craft and design embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. A high-quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge students, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design. As students progress, they should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design. They should also know how art and design both reflect and shape our history, and contribute to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation.

Art’s intent = Our aim is that students at Yate Academy discover and nurture their own identity through appreciation and making of art and seek out their place in the world and how they fit in it through self-discovery.

Drama Statement of Intent

Drama provides students with creative experiences that can take with them into the wider world.  Studying Drama is not only about creating actors for the stage and screen, but about building character and confidence the through art of performing.  Drama allows students to build on their confidence, communication skills, creativity and imagination, to name a few. Along the journey students will learn about the world we live in, past, present and future.  It allows the students to take part in an experience or a situation that they wouldn’t usually have the opportunity too.  Students will learn about the process of creating drama, interpretation and intention, key performance skills that may help them past their school life and how to give constructive and developed feedback to others.

KS3

The KS3 curriculum allows students to engage with the subject practically and theoretically through topics styles such as Naturalism and Pantomime.  Students will develop a range of performance skills, techniques and subject knowledge that will embed their understanding and lay the foundations ready for KS4. 

KS4

The KS4 curriculum allows students to deepen their subject knowledge on specific styles and elements of the theatre.  Students are expected to fully engage in both practical and theoretic lessons, which encourage them to analyse and evaluate the performance work of their peers and professional performers.  Students are given exciting opportunities to take part in theatre visits and workshops with professionals in the industry.