‘Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.’

By Plato

At St Nicolas, we want every child to be inspired to develop a life-long love of music. We celebrate and nurture the unique musical strengths of every pupil, encouraging each individual to become a confident musician who has a passion for music making, with their own musical preferences. We foster a love for singing and provide a wide range of performance opportunities, promoting the use of good rehearsal techniques to enable pupils to achieve the best they can.

Musical knowledge, skills and techniques are taught through a tailor-made music curriculum, with links made to Maestro class projects in the context of a wide range of musical periods, styles, genres, composers and cultures. Pupils are challenged to use musical language intrinsically when describing processes and appraising pieces. Each project focuses on a specific musical skill, style and period, whilst developing an understanding of the interrelated dimensions of music alongside this. This is resourced using a wide range of material from a variety of sources.

Musical projects are taught by a specialist music teacher and follow a progressive process, leading to a cohesive musical outcome that is celebrated at the end of each term. Performances play an important part in this and all children perform in assemblies and concerts every year.

Pupils in Early Years are given the opportunity to explore musical instruments through creative play as well as singing nursery rhymes and chants as part of daily routines. Weekly class music lessons led by a specialist music teacher allow pupils to explore instruments in a more structured way and begin to work together in group music making. 

What you'll see:

• Children developing their musical knowledge and skills through practical music making and exploring a wide range of musical instruments, techniques, genres and repertoire.
• Children paying attention to the basic techniques of warming up, good posture, breathing, diction, phrasing, expression and dynamics when singing. 
• Children being encouraged to take the initiative to follow their curiosity and develop their own creative responses as musicians, whilst respecting those of others.
• Children following a range of graphic and staff music notation.
• Children developing an understanding of musical forms, traditions, periods, cultures and composers through their own music making.

What you'll hear:

• Children making music, together or individually.
• Children enjoying lively warm ups, using body percussion, voice or percussion instruments, that develop a command of the interrelated dimensions.
• Children singing in different styles, languages or parts.
• Children learning to play different instruments, including percussion, recorders, violins, keyboards, djembe, guitar and ukulele, and practising skills and techniques in working towards a polished performance.
• Children talking about music they have played or listened to and reviewing, analysing and comparing pieces to provide a clear context for pieces learnt.
• Children developing the skill of using musical vocabulary intrinsically.
• Children sharing and celebrating their personal musical experiences from the wider curriculum and beyond e.g. performing a piece learnt outside of school or sharing own compositions.