Explanatory notes
During key stage 2 pupils sing songs and play instruments with increasing confidence, skill, expression and awareness of their own contribution to a group or class performance. They improvise, and develop their own musical compositions, in response to a variety of different stimuli with increasing personal involvement, independence and creativity. They explore their thoughts and feelings through responding physically, intellectually and emotionally to a variety of music from different times and cultures.
Knowledge, skills and understanding
Controlling sounds through singing and playing - performing skills
1. Pupils should be taught how to:
- sing songs, in unison and two parts, with clear diction, control of pitch, a sense of phrase and musical expression
- play tuned and untuned instruments with control and rhythmic accuracy
- practise, rehearse and present performances with an awareness of the audience.
Creating and developing musical ideas - composing skills
2. Pupils should be taught how to:
- improvise, developing rhythmic and melodic material when performing
- explore, choose, combine and organise musical ideas within musical structures.
Responding and reviewing - appraising skills
3. Pupils should be taught how to:
- analyse and compare sounds
- explore and explain their own ideas and feelings about music using movement, dance, expressive language and musical vocabulary
- improve their own and others' work in relation to its intended effect.
Listening, and applying knowledge and understanding
- to listen with attention to detail and to internalise and recall sounds with increasing aural memory
- how the combined musical elements of pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture and silence can be organised within musical structures [for example, ostinato] and used to communicate different moods and effects
- how music is produced in different ways [for example, through the use of different resources, including ICT] and described through relevant established and invented notations
- how time and place can influence the way music is created, performed and heard [for example, the effect of occasion and venue].
Explanatory notes
Note for 1a
Cross reference to English
En1 Speaking and listening: Speaking
1. To speak with confidence in a range of contexts, adapting their speech for a range of purposes and audiences, pupils should be taught to:
e. speak audibly and clearly, using spoken standard English in formal contexts
Note for 1c
Cross reference to English
En1 Speaking and listening: Speaking
1. To speak with confidence in a range of contexts, adapting their speech for a range of purposes and audiences, pupils should be taught to:
b. gain and maintain the interest and response of different audiences [for example, by exaggeration, humour, varying pace and using persuasive language to achieve particular effects]
Note for 3b
Cross reference to English
En1 Speaking and listening: Speaking
1. To speak with confidence in a range of contexts, adapting their speech for a range of purposes and audiences, pupils should be taught to:
a. use vocabulary and syntax that enables them to communicate more complex meanings
Cross reference to PE
Dance activities
6. Pupils should be taught to:
b. respond to a range of stimuli and accompaniment
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 appropriately to others, pupils should be taught to:
c. recall and re-present important features of an argument, talk, reading, radio or television programme, film
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
Note for 4b, 4c
Cross reference to science
Sc4 Physical processes: Light and sound
3. Pupils should be taught:
Vibration and sound
e. that sounds are made when objects [for example, strings on musical instruments] vibrate but that vibrations are not always directly visible
f. how to change the pitch and loudness of sounds produced by some vibrating objects [for example, a drum skin, a plucked string]
g. that vibrations from sound sources require a medium [for example, metal, wood, glass, air] through which to travel to the ear
Breadth of study
5. During the key stage, pupils should be taught the Knowledge, skills and understanding through:
- a range of musical activities that integrate performing, composing and appraising
- responding to a range of musical and non-musical starting points
- working on their own, in groups of different sizes and as a class
- using ICT to capture, change and combine sounds
- a range of live and recorded music from different times and cultures [for example, from the British Isles, from classical, folk and popular genres, by well-known composers and performers].
Explanatory notes
Note for 5b
Cross reference to English
En2 Reading: Literature
8. The range should include:
a. a range of modern fiction by significant children's authors
b. long-established children's fiction
c. a range of good-quality modern poetry
d. classic poetry
e. texts, drawn from a variety of cultures and traditions
f. myths, legends and traditional stories
g. playscripts
Cross reference to PE
Dance activities
6. Pupils should be taught to:
a. create and perform dances using a range of movement patterns, including those from different times, places and cultures
b. respond to a range of stimuli and accompaniment
Note for 5d
Cross reference to ICT
Finding things out
1. Pupils should be taught:
b. how to prepare information for development using ICT, including selecting suitable sources, finding information, classifying it and checking it for accuracy [for example, finding information from books or newspapers, creating a class database, classifying by characteristics and purposes, checking the spelling of names is consistent]
This content relates to the 1999 programmes of study and attainment targets.