At Didsbury CE, our ethos is Belonging Believing Becoming: where children feel a sense of Belonging to the school and community of Didsbury. We recognise that music plays an important part in helping children feel part of a commununity and so we provide opportunitues for children to create, play, perform and enjoy music both in class and to an audience. Through collective worship concerts, class assemblies and key stage perfirmances children showcase their understanding of how to perform with an awareness of an audience.

Opportunities are sought to expose children to music performed by professional orchestras such as the Halle by visiting the Bridgewater Hall to participate in educational programmes and see the orchestra in action. In addition, children also participate in events and activities run by Manchester Music Hub such as Sing Up.

A broad and balanced curriculum

We aim for the music curriculum to give all children fun, practical and inspiring experiences so that they can enjoy all aspects of music. They will develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose and listen with discrimination to a range of musical genres and artists. We believe music is an important part of our wider curriculum that gives children opportunities to express themselves in a less academic way than, for example, the basic skills of reading, writing and maths.

Children in Foundation Stage have discrete music lessons that last for 15/20 minutes weekly. Children in KS1 have discrete music lessons that last for 30 minutes and in KS2 this extends to 40 minutes.