Philosophy and Vision
Music is the one subject that exercises the whole brain, visually, auditorily and physically. It communicates emotion, is a language in it’s own right and develops key cross-curricular skills such as critical thinking, organisation and team work. Music is an outlet to express feelings, calms the soul and builds lifelong friendships.
Curriculum overview
The Music curriculum at Wellfield is a balance of classical and pop genres and aims to develop the following:
- Gross and fine motor skills
- A knowledge of music through time, making links to key historical events such as the slave trade
- Planning skills through composition work
- Team work through performing in group work throughout every Scheme of Learning
KS4 Curriculum (Y9-11) – links to GCSE specifications
At KS4 Wellfield Music Department follows the Eduqas GCSE Specification. This has been chosen as it is in our opinion the exam board which aims to assess musicianship rather than memory skills. The marks are gained through composing (30%), performing (30%) and a listening exam (40%). There are only two set works in the listening exam which students must learn and memorise and the rest of the music in the exam is well known works from a wide range of genres chosen by the exam board but unknown to students until the exam begins.
KS3 Curriculum (Y7-8)
All students study the three areas of Music (Performing, Composing and Appraising) in Years 7 & 8. In year 7, students learn about singing in harmony, instruments of the orchestra, rhythm skills and how to read notation. In year 8, students use their knowledge from Year 7 to learn about Film Music, Pop and Rock Music and how to write music for a small ensemble. All students with Musical ability are given the opportunity to study Music at GCSE regardless of the academic Band they are in.
Assessment
In Music we assess continuously in lessons looking at practical work (marking for accuracy, technical control and expression and interpretation) and composition work (marking for creativity and development of musical ideas,technical control of musical elements and resources, structure and stylitic coherence) . The criteria for these assessments are based on GCSE criteria and as well as these ongoing assessments there is a formal exam each year where students are given a listening paper in the style of the GCSE listening exam but covering the topics from that year.