🎵 Music at Ryton-on-Dunsmore

At Ryton‑on‑Dunsmore, we use Sing Up as our core scheme of work. Sing Up provides high‑quality, practical and engaging musical experiences that support children’s musical learning and development. The curriculum offers a clear progression of knowledge and skills within each year group and across year groups, ensuring that pupils build their musical understanding steadily and securely over time.

The Sing Up scheme introduces children to a wide range of musical styles and genres from different times, cultures and traditions. These are explored through active listening, performing and composing activities, helping pupils to understand musical context, genre and purpose.

Our intent is for pupils to be actively involved in music‑making. Children develop their singing voices, use body percussion and whole‑body actions, and learn to handle and play classroom instruments effectively. This enables them to create, perform and respond to music - both their own and that of others - with increasing confidence and expression.

In Key Stage 2, pupils also learn the recorder through the Sing Up instrumental unit, giving them experience of reading notation, playing an instrument and performing as part of an ensemble.

Through a rich variety of whole‑class, group and individual activities, pupils have opportunities to:

• explore and manipulate sounds
• listen actively and respond thoughtfully
• compose and perform using a range of musical elements
• develop foundational musical knowledge, including: notation, pitch, timbre, duration, rhythm, dynamics and texture
•  

Our music curriculum nurtures creativity, expression and enjoyment, enabling every child to develop their musical potential and to appreciate music as a universal form of communication.

🎶 Extra‑Curricular Music
At Ryton‑on‑Dunsmore CE Academy, we offer a range of extra‑curricular musical opportunities that enrich pupils’ experiences and nurture their love of music. 

Our school choir plays an active role in the local community, performing at events such as the village Christmas Fair. Singing is also central to our school’s celebrations and collective life, featuring prominently in our Christmas Nativity play and Carol Services. These experiences help pupils develop confidence, teamwork and a lifelong enjoyment of music.