Music key stage 1

Statutory content 

Teaching should ensure that 'listening, and applying knowledge and understanding', are developed through the interrelated skills of 'performing', 'composing' and 'appraising'.

Explanatory notes

During key stage 1 pupils listen carefully and respond physically to a wide range of music. They play musical instruments and sing a variety of songs from memory, adding accompaniments and creating short compositions, with increasing confidence, imagination and control. They explore and enjoy how sounds and silence can create different moods and effects.

Knowledge, skills and understanding

Controlling sounds through singing and playing - performing skills

1. Pupils should be taught how to:

  1. use their voices expressively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes
  2. play tuned and untuned instruments
  3. rehearse and perform with others [for example, starting and finishing together, keeping to a steady pulse].

Creating and developing musical ideas - composing skills

2. Pupils should be taught how to:

  1. create musical patterns
  2. explore, choose and organise sounds and musical ideas.

Responding and reviewing - appraising skills

3. Pupils should be taught how to:

  1. explore and express their ideas and feelings about music using movement, dance and expressive and musical language
  2. make improvements to their own work.

Listening, and applying knowledge and understanding

4. Pupils should be taught:

  1. to listen with concentration and to internalise and recall sounds with increasing aural memory
  2. how the combined musical elements of pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture and silence can be organised and used expressively within simple structures [for example, beginning, middle, end]
  3. how sounds can be made in different ways [for example, vocalising, clapping, by musical instruments, in the environment] and described using given and invented signs and symbols
  4. how music is used for particular purposes [for example, for dance, as a lullaby].

Explanatory notes

Note for 1a

Cross reference to English

En1 Speaking and listening: Speaking

1. To speak clearly, fluently and confidently to different people, pupils should be taught to:

a. speak with clear diction and appropriate intonation

En1 Speaking and listening: Breadth of study

Speaking

8. The range should include:

b. reading aloud and reciting

Note for 2b

ICT opportunity

Pupils could use software designed to enable exploration of sounds.

Note for 3a

Cross reference to English

En1 Speaking and listening: Drama

4. To participate in a range of drama activities, pupils should be taught to:

a. use language and actions to explore and convey situations, characters and emotions

Cross reference to PE

Dance activities

6. Pupils should be taught to:

a. use movement imaginatively, responding to stimuli, including music, and performing basic skills [for example, travelling, being still, making a shape, jumping, turning and gesturing]
c. create and perform dances using simple movement patterns, including those from different times and cultures

Note for 3b

ICT opportunity

Pupils could use recording equipment to recall sounds and identify and make improvements.

Note for 4

Listening is integral to the development of all aspects of pupils' knowledge and understanding of music.

Note for 4a

Cross reference to English

En1 Speaking and listening: Listening

2. To listen, understand and respond to others, pupils should be taught to:

a. sustain concentration
f. identify and respond to sound patterns in language [for example, alliteration, rhyme, word play]

Note for 4b

'pitch' - higher/lower
'duration' - longer/shorter, steady pulse, beat, rhythm
'dynamics' - louder/quieter/silence
'tempo' - faster/slower
'timbre' - different types of sound
'texture' - different ways sounds are combined
'structure' - different ways sounds are organised

Cross reference to science

Sc4 Physical processes: Light and sound

3. Pupils should be taught:

Making and detecting sounds

c. that there are many kinds of sound and sources of sound
d. that sounds travel away from sources, getting fainter as they do so, and that they are heard when they enter the ear

Note for 4c

Cross reference to science

Sc4 Physical processes: Light and sound

3. Pupils should be taught:

Making and detecting sounds

c. that there are many kinds of sound and sources of sound
d. that sounds travel away from sources, getting fainter as they do so, and that they are heard when they enter the ear

Breadth of study

5. During the key stage, pupils should be taught the Knowledge, skills and understanding through:

  1. a range of musical activities that integrate performing, composing and appraising
  2. responding to a range of musical and non-musical starting points
  3. working on their own, in groups of different sizes and as a class
  4. a range of live and recorded music from different times and cultures.

Explanatory notes

Note for 5b

Cross reference to English

En2 Reading: Literature

3. To develop their understanding of fiction, poetry and drama, pupils should be taught to:

b. use their knowledge of sequence and story language when they are retelling stories and predicting events
d. learn, recite and act out stories and poems
e. identify patterns of rhythm, rhyme and sounds in poems and their effects
f. respond imaginatively in different ways to what they read [for example, using the characters from a story in drama, writing poems based on ones they read, showing their understanding through art or music]

Cross reference to PE

Dance activities

6. Pupils should be taught to:

a. use movement imaginatively, responding to stimuli, including music, and performing basic skills [for example, travelling, being still, making a shape, jumping, turning and gesturing]
b. change the rhythm, speed, level and direction of their movements
c. create and perform dances using simple movement patterns, including those from different times and cultures

This content relates to the 1999 programmes of study and attainment targets.