Music at the Federation

At the Federation, NORCA & Sistema in Norwich provide Music lessons and opportunities for all children to create, play,  perform and enjoy music, to develop skills and appreciate a wide variety of musical forms.  We embrace the National Curriculum (Ofsted, 2014) purpose of study which states:  

“Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high  quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and  their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of  achievement. As pupil’s progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music,  allowing them to compose, improvise and to listen with discrimination to the best in the  musical canon.”   National Curriculum 2014. 

The objectives of teaching music at NORCA & Sistema in Norwich are to:  

• Encourage our children’s understanding and enjoyment of music through an active  involvement in listening, composing, improvising and performing;  
• Provide the opportunity for children to develop their individual skills, sharing experience  and cooperating with others;  
• Help children to develop an awareness of musical traditions from a variety of cultures.  

At NORCA & Sistema in Norwich we address the curriculum  through a rich and progressive spiral of musical activity (ISM,  Daubney, Fautney, 2019) that teaches musical skill, whilst  developing other transferable skills recognised to benefit from  musical engagement (S. Hallam 2015). Further, NORCA &  Sistema in Norwich keeps the social, moral, spiritual and  cultural development that is intrinsically involved in the  musical process, at the core of our teaching (ISM, Daubney,  Fautney, 2019). 

APPROACHES AND CURRICULUM  

The spiral progression of musical ability 

Although it is important to recognise the strands of musical learning that can be developed  in young students it is equally important to understand the holistic nature of musical  learning (ISM, Daubney, Fautney, 2019). When children learn to play a musical instrument  they inevitably develop improved listening skills; when they begin to improvise with an  instrument they will begin to learn how to compose. The strands of musical ability are  intertwined, and by experiencing rich and varied musical activities, the strands progress  together, and can be assessed together.  

 NORCA & Sistema in Norwich students develop musical skill through the use of the  Kodaly method (Beng Huat See, Lindsay Ibbotson, 2018), which is evidenced to positively  affect attainment, language and mathematics by developing links between aural, visual and  vocal stimuli, while being an internationally recognised musical pedagogy applied to  education in both whole class ensemble teaching (WCET) and instrumental learning.  Singing is part of every day life and promotes, but is not limited to, social, moral, spiritual  and cultural development. Singing is progressive and is respected as the high order musical  skill it is, while also being a proven technique for developing language, supporting language  for students with English as an additional language (EAL), and improving concentration  skills (Idrees, 2019).

In addition, music provides the perfect opportunity to discuss  historical and cultural subjects while allowing students to express opinion and appreciate  the opinions of others (S Hallam, 2015). Classroom music lessons also employ a digital  approach to learning that embraces modern technologies which are current and relevant to  young musicians while providing the opportunity to develop transferrable computing and  programming skills (Henley, 2011).