Music vision statement: 

Curriculum music:

Holton St Peter believes that high quality music teaching is essential to developing a sense of self. We use Charanga to deliver structured music lessons each week to all classes. Within these lessons pupils are taught to listen and appraise different musical genres and styles; develop voice and instrument skills- including tuned and untuned instruments and learn simple notation, composition and improvisation. We encourage children to voice their opinions on what they are hearing using musical vocabulary and to think critically about compositions and how this affects the listener. All children get a chance to perform, at their pace within lessons, this could be as part of a group, class or individual performance. 

Within each lesson the teachers will assess and monitor the progress made and adapt future lessons to reflect this and the next step skills that are needed.  

Extra-curricular music:

As part of our commitment to high quality music provision, Holton St Peter offers children the opportunity to have one-to-one private piano lessons in school. This is in addition to curriculum music lessons and is payable by parents (other funding circumstances are considered). Additionally, singing club is offered as one of our extra-curricular activities. Children are always encouraged to set up their own clubs and societies during lunchtimes, including musical clubs. We believe this encourages children to develop their self-esteem and grow to become well-rounded confident makers of music.  

Musical experiences:

At Holton St Peter we firmly believe in giving all children the opportunity to perform in and experience musical performances and shows. We regularly work with Britten Pears Arts at Snape Maltings to experience world class musical performances. We take part in Young Voices at the O2 arena London, joining thousands of other children in singing unison. We also have visiting artists and musicians come into school or live stream to perform and inspire the children in their musical journey.

We have regular music assemblies as a whole school and within phase groups, where children get to enjoy singing together and learning ‘signing’ to sing. We also encourage the children to share their outside musical life with the wider school in celebration assembly on Friday.  

In the future:

We are planning to introduce further extra curricular music lessons with the offering of private one-to-one guitar lessons. These will be paid for lessons (other funding options will be considered). We will continue to look at varied musical experiences for the children of Holton St Peter including a ‘Holton band’.

We will also offer training and CPD to staff to continue to develop and extend their music teaching and planning.