Our Music curriculum aims to nurture and inspire creative minds. We teach how Music works, and from day one everyone is treated as a musician regardless of their starting point.
Students are taught the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to compose, arrange, perform, record, edit and evaluate music. Through our curriculum, students learn the value of; structured, meaningful practice, perseverance, and self-motivation, taking risks and coping with the challenges of live performance, good ensemble skills, running rehearsals, working with peers and meeting deadlines. Alongside this, they are exploring the unfamiliar, celebrating cultural diversity, and challenging their own cultural perceptions. Additionally, they are acquiring specialist language, so that they can articulate their ideas and opinions precisely and concisely.
In a typical lesson we might take an existing piece of music, deconstruct it, and reconstruct in over a number of weeks. We may look at a chord sequence, explore how it is built, why the chords work well together, simplify or elaborate on them, and create a bassline or new melody. We listen, perform and compose, then evaluate and write, using specialist language and notation that is both helpful and academically stretching. By the end of Year 9, we want students to be able to pursue their own musical preferences independently; to know enough about singing, playing a range of instruments, reading different forms of notation, to be able to research fascinating musical stuff on the internet and to do good, musical, things with it.
Our curriculum is closely linked to extra-curricular music-making at Southfield. Playing and singing together beyond the classroom enables students to become part of our school community, fostering mature working relationships and lifelong friendships. As they make their way through the school, our students to flourish in leadership roles as musical mentors, coaches, arrangers and rehearsal directors. Our students are encouraged to take musical risks, and to develop the ability to cope with change and challenge. At the same time we are laying down the foundations of a lifetime of enjoying music for music’s sake, as well as recognising its transferable properties.