Music
Intent
Tufnell Park School’s music curriculum is delivered by third party provider, Teach Major.
Teach Major is a collective of outstanding primary education practitioners, with valuable experience in the modern music industry.
As a specialist music education provider, they offer a range of flexible, bespoke services designed to develop musical understanding, and to nurture talent, creativity and confidence.
While their brand is synonymous with unparalleled expertise and excellence, they also take pride in prioritising the welfare of every child and supporting schools beyond contractual obligation.
Teach Major offers the most comprehensive service, with the deepest commitment to integrating to school life, identifying potential, carving out opportunities, and proactively responding to individual’s aspirations through child-centred planning and focus.
They have carefully integrated progression into their curriculum planning, considering both the steps required to build on children’s learning and understanding from lesson to lesson, but have also incorporated a long-term plan to build upon musical learning. Teach Major have meticulously planned their curriculum in line with the government’s model music curriculum (2021) with foci on topics such as pitch, note duration, dynamics, composition, performance, and the socio-historical context of famous compositions.
Implementation
At the beginning of each lesson Teach Major clearly states their expectations for the class, which are set in line with our school policies and procedures. Teach Major use WALT (We Are Learning To) and WILF (What I’m Looking For) to identify our learning objectives and outcomes, so that children know what they are working towards and how they can demonstrate their understanding by the end of the lesson. Teach Major practitioners refer back to these points throughout sessions, so that lesson aims are not missed / lost.
They also share their expectations around behaviour at the beginning of sessions, such as listening carefully and being respectful of others and equipment. Like Tufnell Park staff, Teach Major strives to instil a sense of responsibility to be caring and compassionate.
However, despite having fixed aims for the sessions, Teach Major actively encourages children to remain inquisitive and ask questions, or experiment with the skills and instruments being exercised/used in the lesson.
Impact
Children are given ownership over projects on a regular basis, e.g. for composition and/or performance, in order to develop their confidence in the skills they are learning. This also offers children frequent exposure to new challenges, which assists them in building resilience towards situations in which success is not guaranteed. This gives us the opportunity to help pupils develop a growth mindset, by reassuring children that failure is not the end – it is just another opportunity to learn and overcome.
Teach Major uses daily pupil progress assessment forms to evaluate whether a child has understood the learning objective(s) and met the learning outcome(s) for the lesson. This feedback is shared with the school at the end of each term (or half term), so that progress can be tracked and shared with parents/carers at parents’ evening , and on the end of year report.
Throughout sessions, children are formatively assessed using some of the following techniques:
- Group questioning
- Individual questioning
- Asking a child to explain a concept back
- Asking a child to assist a peer
- Observations
- Group tasks
- Performance
Teach Major carefully monitors each child to identify any gaps in knowledge, and to assess whether certain pupils need additional support to understand the basics, or if they need support in accessing further learning for gifted and talented. They also use this information to evaluate whether their lessons are pitched to the right level, and adjust tasks and differentiate accordingly to help students maximise their potential.
On identifying children who find music a little more challenging, Teach Major aims to give them 1:1 or small group focus in the first instance but, where this is not possible, might pair them with a HA/G&T student for peer-to-peer coaching.
Throughout the entire process Teach Major nurtures a safe environment (both physically and emotionally) where it is okay to make mistakes, ask questions and try new things.