Music benefits our Solent children in so many ways.

From early on in our pupils’ school lives, music begins to develop those essential skills that are important to all their curriculum subjects and will take them onto the next stage in their school career. Through music they enhance their language capabilities, improve their memory, strengthen hand-eye-co-ordination, mental processing and problem-solving skills. They develop their confidence, self-esteem, tolerance and a sense of community through working individually, in groups, as a class, year group or whole school.

By the time they leave Solent Infant School, our aim is that all pupils:

• Play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression.
• Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music
• Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory
• Use and understand staff notation and other musical notations
• Appreciate and understand a wide range of high quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians
• Develop an understanding of the history of music

By the time they leave Solent Junior School, our aim is that all pupils:

• Use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes
• Play tuned and untuned percussion instruments musically
• Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music
• Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimension of music

At The Solent Schools we aim to ensure that Music is practical, accessible, inclusive and engaging for all children, allowing them to reach their potential in singing, listening, performing and composing. We learn to appreciate a range of music from the past, present and around the world.

The Solent Schools are extremely fortunate to have designated music rooms at both sites, which have a wide range of musical instruments. These wonderful teaching spaces allow activities to be taught in a variety of ways to maximise participation and practical learning. The Solent Schools access specialist music teachers from Portsmouth Music Hub, who provide high quality weekly music lessons and build progression through the Hub’s learning objectives for each year group.

At The Solent Schools, our ‘musical singing communities‘ are developed through singing assemblies and class and year group productions which are planned across the school year.