Our intent at Chacewater School is to promote inspiration, ensure wide ranging access, and develop a love of music in the most diverse and widest appreciation possible. We want our children to learn through music, communicate through music, and consider themselves as musicians capable of learning at any point in their lives. We intend to deliver an exciting music curriculum and general ethos, covering a variety of genres, technical understanding, instrumental access. We aim to cover cultural diversity and music as a universal language through inclusivity, and demonstrate children’s talents and learning through performance opportunities, individual lesson opportunities and group projects.
Music at our school is not only accessed through specific music lessons in class, but also in a number of other ways throughout the whole school experience. Through a weekly singing assembly, children at Chacewater develop their singing skills. They sing as a whole school as well as in Key Stages. The children learn to sing in parts, in canon, and with more skilled elements of dynamic and tonal development through singing a wide range of songs. The children at Chacewater sing a capella, as well as being accompanied by piano and sometimes other instruments such as viola. They learn aurally as well as from words, and perform at Christmas, Harvest, and in the Summer Show having learned the words by heart.
Chacewater School encourages individuals who wish to sing solos at key shows to put themselves forward. They are also encouraged, in upper KS2, to influence decisions on arrangements of songs for performance. Singing is a key part of KS2 lessons, developing harmony singing, and also singing in the Cornish language, and in KS1 as a valuable learning tool to make learning memorable and fun! Every child in KS2 has the opportunity to learn an instrument. Class lessons with ukulele are lead by Jen Dyer. Children learn about a variety of stringed instruments alongside their knowledge of the families of instruments, and develop their skills through the Key Stage. The children are accompanied by Jen Dyer on viola or piano as they play together learning chord patterns, chord progressions, melodies and accompaniment. They learn all the elements of playing a ukulele in order to perform as a group, and to use these instruments to compose music in their own small groups.
Children are able to access individual guitar, keyboard or drum lessons through the Cornwall music hub. All children who learn in instrument individual whether at school or home, are encouraged to share their learning at school, especially in the Spring term when we have a showcase concert. We also like to display certificates and celebrate achievement on a dedicated music board in the hall.
