At East Farleigh we recognise the importance of developing the vital role that music has in developing creativity, individuality and self-expression alongside resilience, determination and confidence. We aim to dedicate sufficient and regular curriculum time to enable and excite children to develop their musical skills with a widening repertoire which they can use to create original, imaginative, fluent and distinctive compositions and performances. Musicians at East Farleigh are active participants in lessons, engaging fully with the full music making process developing an awareness and appreciation of a variety of musical genre, mastering the skills to play an instrument and using music technology effectively, accurately and appropriately. By the time children leave East Farleigh, our aim is that they will have gained a love for, and have an excellent knowledge of music, and an appreciation of different musical traditions and genres. Our ambition is that children become passionate, lifelong learners who feel empowered to continue their musical education as they move into the next steps of their education.

Perform – Children understand that music is created to be performed. Children are given several opportunities throughout each year and their primary career to perform to a live audience. These opportunities range from in class performances to peers, nativity and end of Year 6 productions to performing in live venues such as the O2 Arena. Children are given opportunities to watch live performances from professional musicians at least once an academic year.

Compose – Children appreciate that music is created through a process which has a number of techniques. Children are encouraged to experiment with physical and virtual instruments.

Transcribe – Children understand that compositions need to be understood by others and that there are techniques and a language for communicating them. Musical transcription is encouraged from EYFS throughout the school in the form of graphic scores to using musical notation to express compositions.

Describe – Children appreciate the features and effectiveness of musical elements. A composer/specific genre of music is chosen weekly to be discussed in assemblies – children are encouraged to spend time appreciating music then describing the sounds/their feelings and the impact that music has.

As part of our curriculum philosophy, built on around the concept of mastery and learning being a change to long-term memory, it is impossible to see impact in the short term. We do, however, use assessment based on deliberate practice. This means that we look at the practices taking place to determine whether they are appropriate, related to our goals and likely to produce results in the long run. We use comparative judgement in two ways: in the tasks we set (POP tasks) and in comparing a child's work over time. We also use lesson observations to see if the pedagogical style matches our depth expectations.

End of year teacher assessments, which take into account engagement in lessons, quality of outcomes and results from any POP/ summative tasks, help to form a judgement about a child's attainment within the subject. These judgements are made in relation to a child's progress towards mastering biannual milestones against four essential threshold concepts (see above).