We believe that music is an incredibly powerful form of communication that can shape the way we feel, think and act. Quality music teaching helps the body and the mind work together. It also provides a huge range of opportunities to develop our learning powers, particularly curiosity, empathy and co-operation. To find out more about what we teach and how learning fits together, take a look at our skills and knowledge progression:  

• Skills and Knowledge Progression : Music
   

The aim of our Music curriculum

We believe that music is an incredibly powerful form of communication that can shape the way we feel, think and act. Quality music teaching helps the body and the mind work together. Exposing children to music during early development helps them to learn the sounds and meanings of the words. Dancing to the music helps children build motor skills while allowing them to practice self-expression. We believe that every child should have the opportunity to discover their musical potential and we aim to nurture and encourage musical development across the school.

Our curriculum (which is built around the Kapow Music Programme) ensures that our children gain a firm understanding of what music through listening and evaluating, creating sound, notation, improvising and composing and performing, playing and singing across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions and musical genres. This broad diet of works, covering everything from blues to Vikings, develops an understanding, appreciation and respect for all types of music and the range of emotions and meanings that it can convey.

We also believe in the importance of performance , both to give value to music learning and to provide experiences that our children would not otherwise have access to. We therefore take part in a wide range of music projects (such as Young Voices at the O2) as well as producing ambitious, high quality school productions involving every member of Years 1-6

Experiences we want every child to have at Bedwell:

• Sing on stage to a (large) audience, both through school productions and projects such as Young Voices and the Herts Music Gala 
• Learn to play a musical instrument over an extended period of time, and be given opportunities to develop this further if desired 
• Create and perform songs using a variety of instruments and technology 
• Perform a large-scale musicial with peers, using microphones, staging, costume etc to produce a high quality production 
• Visit large venues (eg. concert theatres) and see professional musicians perform 
• Meet professional composers and musicians and talk to them about how they construct new works, learn new instruments, rehearse and perform.

This term's learning

Young Voices  - Year 5/6 leapt at the chance to take part in the Young Voices project this year., singing at famous venues as part of a massive choir. Having learnt a collection of (pretty tricky) songs, they headed into London to take part in a huge performance at the O2 at the end of January.  You can find out more about their adventures here.

Knock-Knock! - Key Stage 1 put together a fantastic Christmas production, retelling the story of the nativity in a clever new way. With almost 60 children involved, it was a massive task to get the show ready, but every child involved gave 100% in every performance, first in front of the rest of the school and then to our families over the course of three performances. 

Our end-of-year show - The whole of KS2 came together this term to perform Oliver!, and we were all incredibly proud of the show that we created. With Year 6 taking on the lead roles, Year 5 playing townsfolk (who were often found in the pub) and Year 3/4 as the orphans in the workhouse, our production had a cast of 170, making this a huge project. Thank you to everyone who provided costumes and helped out with all the props, hair and make-up that we needed to get into character!