Music and Performing Arts

Intent

Our Intent for Music at Swaffield is that we: Listen, Create and Perform.

Listen

We want to give our children the opportunity to listen to, review and evaluate music from a wide range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians. We do this through our choice of music and musicians studied in lessons and also through our Weekly Morning Music, the Vocal projects we take part in and Singing Assemblies.

Create

We want our children to understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

Perform

We want our children to learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, use technology appropriately
Our Music curriculum is based on the EYFS Framework and the National Curriculum for Music and is designed to develop our children’s knowledge and skills in Music, to help them to feel that they are musical and to support them to develop a life-long love of music.
It will develop their skills in singing, playing tuned and un-tuned instruments, improvising and composing music, and listening and responding to music. They will develop an understanding of the history and cultural context of the music that they listen to and learn how music can be written down. Our Music curriculum is designed to help children develop transferable skills such as team-working, leadership, creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and presentation and performance skills.

This is the Music Development Plan Summary:

Visit our Curriculum page which gives details of Swaffield's 2024/2025 curriculum for each year group.

Implementation

Each unit of work in the Kapow scheme of work for Music incorporates the following five strands –

Listening and evaluating
Creating sound
Notation
Improvising and composting
Performing

It is a spiral curriculum where previous skills and knowledge are returned to and built upon, with tasks becoming more complex as the children progress through the school.

Music is taught in all classes from Nursery to Year 6.

Children develop musical awareness and the enjoyment of music in Early Years through singing and playing instruments and this is developed in their music lessons as they move up the school.

In addition to this, all children in Year 4 have clarinet lessons with a specialist music teacher, during which time they also learn about music theory. Children also have access to a range of instrument lessons in school with specialist teachers and also via our links with local music academy World Heart Beat. Weekly singing assemblies also give pupils a regular opportunity to develop their skills in singing and performing.

Impact

We monitor the impact of our Music curriculum through ongoing assessment within lessons and also through the compositions produced by the children and their performances. Recordings are made at the start of a unit and again at the end so that progress can be monitored. We also assess progress through pupil discussion and feedback from professionals at Wandsworth Music when they are involved in the teaching.

By the time our children leave in Year 6, we want them to:
✓ Be confident performers, composers and listeners
✓ Show an appreciation and respect for a wide range of musical styles from around the world and
understand how music is influenced by the wider cultural, social, and historical contexts in which it is
developed
✓ Understand the various ways in which music can be written down to support performing and composing
activities
✓ Demonstrate and articulate an enthusiasm for music and be able to identify their own personal musical preferences
✓ Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Music

	Swaffield Primary School has been awarded the national award of ‘Arts Mark’ at Gold Level four consecutive times. This is an outstanding achievement and shows the high level of commitment the school and staff have towards Art, Music, Drama and Dance. Read more about the award here.
	We are very proud of the quality of our music provision here at Swaffield and are delighted to have been awarded as a Music Mark School Member.

Year 3 Perform At "Winter Sounds"

Performances

We have a real passion for singing at Swaffield too and the children enjoy a weekly singing assembly. Listen to the children singing the beautiful song "Refuge" here.

A specialist singing teacher is coming in each week to work on a vocal project with different year groups each term.

Year 3 performed at the 'Winter Sounds' Fairfield Halls in the Autumn Term - watch them here:

Year 5 will perform with other schools at a ‘Brighter Sounds’ concert at The Royal Albert Hall next term.

Swaffield Sings At Jubilee

We are extremely proud to have been one of the 22 schools chosen to be part of the Platinum Jubilee Kids' Choir that performed at the Platinum Jubilee Pageant in front of Buckingham Palace on Sunday 5th June 2022.

Swaffield's Jubilee Choir, led by our specialist music teacher Mrs Grayson, was in absolutely fine voice and will remember this historic occasion forever! We'd like to thank brilliant conductor, Richard Frostick, for leading the Kids' Choir through rehearsals and the performance and also Thames Festival Trust for this amazing opportunity.

Listen and enjoy the singing from our rehearsals here.

Enjoy this montage of coverage from the day - click on the image to play:

//www.youtube.com/embed/5DVfTVN7meA#t=0.5

Totally Thames Kids' Choir

We are thrilled to have been one of two Wandsworth schools to take part in the Totally Thames Festival for the last few years.

A number of our most experienced Junior Choir members performed as part of the 400-strong Totally Thames children's choir in front of a huge audience at The Scoop next to City Hall.

Totally Thames
Kids' Choir

Listen to some clips from one of the performances by clicking on the box on the right:

Performing Arts

Swaffield is very proud of its Drama studio and drama is included in many subject areas.

The children have many opportunities to act from sketches in assemblies to musicals at Christmas and Summer Concerts. We also have various drama companies who involve the children in workshops and plays including Drama4All, and PSSA.

Dance is mainly taught as part of the PE curriculum, however there are various after-school clubs to extend the children’s development (please see our Extra-curricular page for details). Throughout the school year professional artists from different cultural backgrounds are invited to perform dances and music to the whole school. Previous ensembles have included Flamenco dancers during our Hispanic Week and Indian dancers during our International Week. Each of these groups has then gone on to provide dance workshops for KS2 children.

We are proud of the high standards we maintain in the Performing Arts
and are always keen to embrace the next project or initiative.

Past Highlights include: singing in the Kids Choir at the Totally Thames Festival (see above for details) held annually in September, performing at the Royal Albert Hall and Royal Festival Hall with other Wandsworth Schools.

Recently they have included:

Charles Dickens Dance
Gamelan
Perform Workshops