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St. Catherine's CE Primary School

St. Catherine's CE Primary School
In God's Love, Together We Flourish

Creative Arts

Art and Design

 Mrs Graham is the Art and Design subject leader at our school. She is an enthusiastic artist who has a passion for watercolour painting and crafts such as crochet.  We believe that children should be given the opportunity to express and develop their own, unique artistic flair in a safe and supportive environment in order to foster a lifelong love and appreciation of art and artists. Art is, after all, everywhere in the world around us!

Art and Design at St. Catherine's

We want our pupils to reach their full potential in art through the introduction of a wider variety of materials and purposeful opportunities from the outset. Pupils can -  and will - quickly build their understanding and skills. Experimentation, risk, and innovation is encouraged throughout school.

We believe that a unique style of creativity is in each and every one of us. Pupils therefore have the right to discover this and express their selves through the creative process, no matter what the barriers to that might be.

During art lessons, children are expected to continually reflect on and evaluate their own work, thinking about how they can make changes and keep improving. 

Pupils will learn about some of the most famous pieces of art that have been created and the artists that created them. They will also learn how to produce their own pieces of art in a range of different forms.  We place great emphasis on teaching pupils to draw with a structured drawing programme that builds up children’s skills over time. We ensure pupils have lots of chance to practice the basics so that they are able to use their knowledge to create their own pieces of art at the end of a unit of study.

Music

 

Music is central to life at St. Catherine’s. Through music lessons and extra-curricular activities, we aim to develop a lifelong love of music. Pupils have many opportunities to take part in extra-curricular music through choir, musical ensembles, concerts and tuition and we celebrate the energy and talent we have at St. Catherine’s whenever we can.

Mrs Graham is the music lead for our school. She has a wide range of experiences from singing in choral societies to playing guitar. 

At St. Catherine's we believe music can capture any child’s creativity and imagination whereby they can express themselves freely. Our children enjoy musical events that we have taken part in through the years especially the ones within our local community.

Music at St. Catherine's

The national curriculum for music aims to ensure that all pupils:

  • perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians
  • 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 and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence
  • 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.

 

At St. Catherine's our intention is to provide our pupils with a broad, creative and explorative music curriculum whereby all pupils can develop their musicianship. We believe that music can inspire and motivate children and can play an important role in their personal development.

Knowledge and skills are built upon through the year groups. From the initial exploration of sounds and songs in foundation stage children progress to sing, listen, play, compose, perform and evaluate through Key Stage 1 and 2. We teach children to listen to and appreciate different forms of music from a variety of cultures. Children are also taught technical terms as they progress and they are encouraged to use this vocabulary when discussing musical elements.

Music plays an important part in helping children to feel part of a community and so we provide opportunities for all children to create, play, perform and enjoy music both in class and to an audience. 

Children are given opportunities to play a music instrument from our peripatetic teachers and Year 4 children learn to play recorder and read music through lessons delivered by school staff. 

Our children in Year 3 take part in a programme of intensive music tuition provided by specialist music teachers to help them learn the violin. 

We  use the well respected Sparkyard Music Curriculum for our music teaching in our other year groups.  The Sparkyard Music Curriculum provides us with a clear sequence of musical activities. With Out of the Ark songs at its heart, it uses a skills-based approach where key musical concepts and themes are developed and revisited across the year groups, building on knowledge and  understanding at every stage. 

St. Catherine's Music Development Plan 2024-25