Key Stage 3 Curriculum

Knowledge, skills and understandingMusic Score

Controlling sounds through singing and playing - performing skills
1) Pupils should be taught how to:

    • sing unison and part songs developing vocal techniques and musical expression
    • perform with increasing control of instrument-specific techniques
    • practise, rehearse and perform with awareness of different parts, the roles and contribution of the different members of the group, and the audience and venue.

Creating and developing musical ideas - composing skills
2) Pupils should be taught how to:

    • improvise, exploring and developing musical ideas when performing
    • produce, develop and extend musical ideas, selecting and combining resources within musical structures and given genres, styles and traditions.

Responding and reviewing - appraising skills
3) Pupils should be taught how to:

    • analyse, evaluate and compare pieces of music
    • communicate ideas and feelings about music using expressive language and musical vocabulary to justify their own opinions
    • adapt their own musical ideas and refine and improve their own and others' work.

Listening, and applying knowledge and understanding
4) Pupils should be taught to:

    • listen with discrimination and to internalise and recall sounds
    • identify the expressive use of musical elements, devices, tonalities and structures
    • identify the resources, conventions, processes and procedures, including use of ICT, staff notation and other relevant notations, used in selected musical genres, styles and traditions
    • identify the contextual influences that affect the way music is created, performed and heard [for example, intention, use, venue, occasion, development of resources, impact of ICT, the cultural environment and the contribution of individuals] .

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 create, manipulate and refine sounds
    • a range of live and recorded music from different times and cultures including music from the British Isles, the 'Western classical' tradition, folk, jazz and popular genres, and by well-known composers and performers.