Music

Music Development Plan Summary:
Bracken Edge Primary School

Overview

This is a summary of how our school delivers music education to all our pupils across three areas:

• Curriculum music
• Co-curricular provision
• Musical experiences

At the end of this document, we also detail what changes we are planning in future years.

This information is to help pupils and parents or carers understand what our school offers and who we work with to support our pupils’ music education.

Part A: Curriculum music

This is about what we teach in lesson time, how much time is spent teaching music and any music qualifications or awards that pupils can achieve.

At BEPS, our ethos is built around the motto to “belong, enjoy, persevere, succeed.” At Bracken Edge Primary School, we are passionate about providing a broad-balanced curriculum and the wider arts are highly valued. We are committed to providing musical education and opportunities for all our children, during their time at our school.

Music is important at BEPS as we aim to show a love of music that demonstrates creativity and critical engagement. Music is an incredibly inclusive subject that encourages all children from all backgrounds and abilities to recognise their achievements and accomplishments.

Planned curriculum music lessons are as follows:

• Our teachers receive weekly support from Artforms Leeds with a qualified music teacher. There is a focus on a teachers’ professional development and involvement in the delivery of these lessons, in order to develop teacher confidence and subject knowledge.
• All children are supported to access these lessons. Art forms work with children from Nursery to Year 6.

Part B: Extra-curricular music

This is about opportunities for pupils to sing and play music, outside of lesson time, including choirs, ensembles and bands, and how pupils can make progress in music beyond the core curriculum.

Music is shared throughout school life. There are many ways we enjoy music away from discrete lessons:

• Class assemblies are a great opportunity for our children listen to different genres of music to increase their musical knowledge and appreciation.
• Christmas Nativities are performed by our Early Years children.
• Year 2 perform a Christmas concert.
• Year 6 perform at the end of the school year.
• All our children have the opportunity to enjoy weekly singing assemblies
• We have a weekly KS2 choir club and the choir is given opportunities to perform.
• As part of the suggestion from the Model Music Curriculum, we have a school band involving Year 4 children. They meet once a week.
• Our Early Years include singing as a part of their daily routine and to enhance topics/provision.
• Our Early Years participate in mark making to music to develop their motor skills.
• We have recently introduced ‘music of the week’ to all our pupils. Every week in school, we share a featured genre of music and a variety of artists within the genre. We think about how the music makes us feel, who created the music and where in the world it originates from.

We encourage musical experiences to increase children’s exposure to live performance and musicians are welcomed to school.

In the past year we have had outside performers to enhance the Year 6 and Early Years curriculum. We have also had a live band to play to the whole school, allowing pupils to hear and see instruments they wouldn’t usually experience in a school setting.

Part C: Musical experiences

This is about all the other musical events and opportunities that we organise, such as singing in assembly, concerts and shows, and trips to professional concerts.

Highlights over the last 12 months include:

• Nursery and Reception had a visit from ‘Chestra Duo’ to support their mini beats topic.
• Year 6 had a visit from Sam Barrett to support their topic about the Industrial Revolution.
• Back Chat Brass performed in the school hall for all our pupils from Nursery to Year 6.
• All the children practised and performed a number of Christmas songs in our playground – Bracken Edge’s Big Sing. Parents/Carers were invited to join in with the experience. This also gave our choir the opportunity to perform to a large audience.

In the future

This is about what the school is planning for subsequent years.

• Create a whole school band, introducing a range of musical instruments. They will be given opportunities to perform.
• Some of our older children will be attending Young Voices 2025.
• We will continue to develop a school choir and children’s performance skills with more opportunities to perform throughout the year
• We will continue to provide our staff with CPD to continue to develop their confidence and subject knowledge.
• Our pupils will be involved in the Leeds Music Festival Concert 2025.