Music Intent

At Southroyd Primary School, our music curriculum intends to inspire creativity, self-expression and a life-long love of music in all our pupils. Children should gain a firm understanding of what music is, through singing, listening, performing, composing and evaluating while being exposed to a wide variety of genres of music. We intend that all children should gain a curiosity and enthusiasm for the subject and a respect for all types of music. 

As children move through school they will begin to explore, engage and then express themselves through music. In this way they will develop skills that will inspire them to think critically and creatively, not just in the classroom, but across all aspects of their life. 

By listening and responding to different musical styles, finding their voices as singers and performers and as composers, all will enable them to become confident, reflective musicians. 

We also intend that our children become incrementally better at playing musical instruments and singing as they progress through school - building on skills which will help them at secondary school and in later life, if they are inspired to specialise in music. 

‘Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity’ (The National Curriculum)

As a school, and in accordance with the National Curriculum’s expectations, we aim to ensure that all pupils:

• should perform, listen to, review and evaluate music.
• be taught to sing, and play a range of instruments, using different forms of notation.
• Be taught to create and compose music.
• explore how music is created, produced and communicated.

Skills

The aims of our Music curriculum are to develop pupils who:

• Can sing and use their voices individually and in a group
• Create and compose music on their own and with others
• Use technology appropriately when composing
• Have opportunities to learn a musical instrument
• Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated
• Listen to, review and evaluate the work of great composers and musicians from a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions

• Enjoy and have an appreciation of a range of different musical styles 
• Use and understand musical language and include musical features in their own work
• Make judgements about the quality of music
• Have opportunities to play a wide variety of instruments
• Have different opportunities to take part in performances

Year 5 presented KS2 assembly along with invited parents to perform their ukulele songs, which they had worked on during the year - March 2017.

Music Implementation

At Southroyd, music is taught (and thus assessed) on the three key strands of 'listening and responding', 'performing' and 'composing'. The music curriculum ensures students sing, listen, play, perform and evaluate music. This is embedded in classroom activities as well as the learning of instruments, preparation and performances (in school and in church) at Harvest, Christmas and Easter and the joining of musical ensembles. The elements of music are taught in classroom lessons so that children are able to use the language of music to discuss it, and understand how it is made, played, appreciated and analysed. In the classroom students learn how to play various un-tuned and tuned percussion instruments and as a class in Year 5, the ukulele. In doing so they understand the different principles of creating notes, as well as how to devise and read their own musical scores and basic music notation. They also learn how to compose focussing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. Composing or performing using body percussion, vocal sounds and technology is also part of the curriculum, which develops the understanding of musical elements without the added complexity of an instrument. 

The music curriculum is very much on a progressive spiral, so children will continue to revisit key skills both during an academic year and as they move through the key stage. This allows them to continually develop as musicians, through a deeper understanding of rhythm and pitch, reading music notation, listening skills, composition and performing using instruments and voices.

At Southroyd, music is embedded in and threaded through the curriculum, rather than being taught using schemes. 

Music in the curriculum at Southroyd is supported and enhanced by visits to singing events and participation in extra-curricular activities such as Samba drumming (organised by Artforms), visits by professional musicians and songwriters and school clubs such as Choir, The Southroyd Band and two Ukulele clubs. 

The Little Sing at Pudsey Civic Hall in April  2022

The KS2 choir took part in a concert at Priesthorpe during the Christmas period, learning and performing 7 songs from Christmas around the world.

Music Impact

Whilst in school, children have opportunities to become a musician in their own right (through listening and responding, performing and composing), allowing them to discover areas of strength, as well as areas they might like to improve upon. The integral nature of music creates an enormously rich palette from which a child may access fundamental abilities such as: achievement, self-confidence, interaction with and awareness of others, and self-reflection. Music will also develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to students individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world. Children are able to enjoy music, in as many ways as they choose - either as listener, creator or performer. They can discuss music and comprehend its parts, using the technical language of music. They can sing, feel a pulse, add rhythms and create melodies in a group and they can further develop these skills in the future and continue to enjoy and embrace music in their lives.

Further Impact

2024/2025

Composer of the month has continued this year, with a regularly-updated display in KS2 and slides and YouTube links being shared to all colleagues every month. This year, the majority of the composers have been sourced from BBC Ten Pieces, who have prepared resources about women composers who have been unfairly overlooked. Therefore we have built a great deal of diversity into the music children have been exposed to throughout the year.

Singing Assemblies have been a very regular feature in both KS1 and KS2.  We have used music from the Composer of the Month as entry music to the singing assemblies. KS1 have established a list of pop songs and pieces of music to use as entry music to assembly which fit in with the themes of each assembly. 

Mr Hall has written a song about British Values and taught it to all the children in school. 

Ukulele in Year 5 – we have had another successful year with the children learning to play one finger melodies from the very first lesson, learning their first simple chords and strumming patterns and then learning how to read tablature (following a score). The children have been exposed to a very diverse range of music and musicians, including: pop, folk, classical, reggae and more.

Some children in Year 5 also attended a lunchtime ukulele club.

The progression in ukulele has been shown in the fact that, by the end of their time learning the instrument, most of the children could play a very complicated part in a classical piece and change chords while strumming in rhythm. In addition to this, the very successful Year 6 Ukulele Club also shows real progression. The children in Uke Club have looked at a wide variety of different pieces of music and played in a wide variety of styles – from single note playing (playing complicated Irish jigs and reels) to more complex rhythms and chord progressions (playing a wide variety of songs from different genres). 

The Year 6 Ukulele Club performed in the Harvest Festival and the Christmas service at the Parish Church (as well as during the school Christmas production) and the Spirit Alive ceremonies. 

The Uke Club members also used their skills to help them in their composition work in Year 6 music curriculum lessons.

Throughout the year, there has been a regular and very enthusiastic KS2 Choir. The children learned songs which helped improve the quality of singing in assemblies and also prepared songs for performances at Christmas in School, Church and also at ASDA – where the choir raised money for FOSS.

In March, all of Year One attended the Little Sing – an experience organised by Artforms which saw the children improving their singing skills and singing along with a live band. The children found it very exciting.

In July, a small group of Year 5 and 6 children took part in a singing event with other schools (both primary and secondary) and a live band at Leeds Arena. This involved a great deal of preparation in school, as well as two official rehearsal sessions at Pudsey Civic Hall. The children gained a great deal of experience from the rehearsal process and the final performance – especially as they were lucky enough to see so many young people playing many different genres of music so brilliantly. The children said they were inspired and that they want to do it again next year! The children performed brilliantly, having learned four challenging new songs and a medley of arena rock songs – the latter being back by a live orchestra!

In order to improve our music provision, we have recently ordered a class set of chime bars We have chosen chime bars because they are easier to play than a standard xylophone and notes can be removed to make playing certain simple tunes easier. 

Southroyd's KS2 School Band began rehearsing in September 2025.

Members of KS2 Choir have been asked to perform in the Winter Voices concert in December 2025.

2022/2023

Every year since September 2022, Year 5 and 6 Choir have reached out to the community by singing Christmas Carols in public at ASDA (while doing fund-raising for FOSS). They have also performed Christmas songs at Pudsey Marketplace for the Christmas lights switch-on event. As well as this, the Choir also made an important contribution to the brilliant Southroyd Christmas performance.

Currently the Choir are working on a specially-written song for Leeds 2023, and their contribution will be filmed and sent off for inclusion in a special film very soon.

In 2022/23 the Year 6 Ukulele Club is the biggest it's ever been and is going from strength to strength. The club have been learning more challenging chords and improving their reading of tablature (special musical notation for ukuleles). This progression from Year 5 curriculum ukulele has been very pleasing indeed. Currently Ukulele Club are learning uke parts for the specially-written song for Leeds 2023 (their contribution will be filmed alongside Choir). 

Children from the choir sing within the local community, for example the local Asda.

The whole class have the opportunity to learn recorder from Y2. This is then developed my many into playing the fife, clarinet or trumpet.