Music Curriculum Map

Music at St Mary’s focusses on the development of the whole person whilst raising the cultural capital of all who study it. The curriculum is vertically integrated and designed to develop both the practical skills needed for the performance and creation of Music as well as the knowledge of its historical development through the ages.

Music is taught once per fortnight in Year 7 and Year 8; students select to study it as an option in Year 9 where they undertake a mini GCSE.

Music in KS3 is focussed around the three key areas of study; Composition, Listening and Performing. Students will listen to, review and evaluate music from across a range of historical periods including the works of the great composers and musicians. They will learn to sing and use their voices as well as creating and composing their own music on the keyboards. Students have the opportunity to study a musical instrument and to use technology on a regular basis. Music is taught in a specific suite with Apple Mac computers, all of which have the latest technology to enable music to be created more easily. Students also understand how music is created, produced and communicated through the inter-related techniques of pitch; duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations. At KS4 students study the GCSE Music curriculum from WJEC/Eduqas.

In addition to the curriculum, Music plays an active part in the extra-curricular life of the Academy. There is an annual Academy musical, an Advent service and also a Summer soiree. The Department runs regular theatre trips in the North West and we have ran an annual successful theatre trip to London prior to the pandemic.