"A high quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talents as musicians and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement." (DfE,2013)
At Acorn House music is a compulsory subject thought and experienced by all children in Early Years, Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3.

Music subject is developed at AHI to contribute to form musical skills and to make a significant contribution to children's development: increasing confidence, and self-esteem, developing leadership, team working, concentration and problem solving skills, and developing identity, whilst improving social cohesion within the school. Students are engaged once a week in their music class work and participate to a weekly general assembly and twice a year to performances, in the form of Musicals and chorus.
Learning Objectives
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Early Years
Work Creatively with Sounds
- Explore different music atmospheres (relaxed, fast, slow, happy, mysterious) using body movements (dance, hands clapping, walking)
- Explore basic music instruments (percussions, flute, xylophone, maracas) and respond to basic music sounds using games and different activities.
- Add creative sounds to pre-recorded simple music tracks, using small percussions, or hands clapping, or names/words/sung notes
Sing and Perform Activities:
- Actions Songs, Singing Games, Nursery Rhymes
- Different use of voice (spoken, sung, smiling, imitating nature sounds) on simple melodies with accompaniments (guitar or cd)
- The importance of SILENCE in music (understand why silence is a main “ingredient” in music and makes it richer, the kids will learn to “listen” to the silence)
Listen and React to music sounds
- Understanding of dynamics (quiet, loud) speed (fast slow) and “moods” (Happy, Sad)
- Rhythm and movement exercises responding to teacher’s inputs.
- Explore and discuss quality of sounds and songs (tuned notes, noises, higher or lower, loud, quiet)
Key stage 1
During key stage 1 pupils listen carefully and respond physically to a wide range of music. They play musical instruments and sing a variety of songs from memory, adding accompaniments and creating short compositions, with increasing confidence, imagination and control. They explore and enjoy how sounds and silence can create different moods and effects.
- Performing Skills
- Pupils should learn to use their voices expressively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes
- Rehearse and perform with others, singing or playing instruments [for example, starting and finishing together, keeping to a steady pulse].
- Listening and understanding
- Pupils should learn to listen with concentration, understand how music can be used for particular purposes, how sounds can be made in different ways, and recognize music elements such as pitch, tempo, dynamics, rhythm patterns and melodies.
Starting from Year 1 the students will begin to explore the main music areas:
- Ensemble & Choir Concepts / Working in a Team / Orchestra
- Rhythm & Pulse
- Melody
- Ear Training
- Music Instruments
They will begin to familiarize with each area’s rules, qualities, potentials, learning how to mix them, play with them, find their favourite field.
- Ensemble & Choir Concepts / Working in a Team / Orchestra
- During the year the teacher and the students will start to understand and define the “idea” of a work team, aiming to sing, create, listen, arrange, discuss, and discover music together.
- The students will often work (or sing/play) in separated groups and the teacher will guide them on more complex rhytmical or harmonic patterns, according to their responses and abilities.
- Rhythm & Pulse
- Getting to know the Metronome: why it’s important to “follow a rhythm”, differences between singing “on time” and “out of time”, Slow rhythm, Fast Rhythm.
- Exercises using Metronome with body movements/instruments/voice
- Students will start to understand different ways of “keeping the rhythm” and “subdivisions"
- Music is inside and all around us: Teacher will gradually explain that music represents a big “part” of our life , in the way we speak, we breath, our heartbeat, sounds of nature, music from radio/tv/movies
- Introducing the concept of “performing with others”, to “start” a song together and to stop at the same time.
- Melody
- Scales and Arpeggios: simple and small choir exercises, using piano or guitar
- Songs, EarTraining Games and activities (about pitch, duration, quality of sound)
- Practice on voice, how to use it, difference between singing, speaking, whispering, falsetto, imitation of famous characters from cartoons, movies, nature animals/sounds
- EarTraining
- Introducing tuning of notes using numbers (ex. 1=low, 5=Middle, 8= High)
- Understand the concept of “Out of tune”, wrong note, wrong chord, using music games.
- Importance of the Silence and pauses in music
- Music Instruments
- Discover the “families” of instruments (percussions, wind, strings, voice, keyboards) discuss the quality with students
- Teacher will periodically bring in the class different instruments during the year (Guitar, Bass Guitar, Saxophone, Clarinet, Accordion) the students will have a chance to listen to their sound, play them, express their ideas on how to play them.
- Practice using small percussions and flutes to work on small rhythm exercises, small melodies
Key Stage 2
During key stage 2 pupils sing songs and play instruments with increasing confidence, skill, expression and awareness of their own contribution to a group or class performance. They improvise, and develop their own musical compositions, in response to a variety of different stimuli with increasing personal involvement, independence and creativity. They explore their thoughts and feelings through responding physically, intellectually and emotionally to a variety of music from different times and cultures.
- Performing Skills
- Pupils should learn to sing songs, in unison and two part, with clear diction , control of pitch, and sense of interpretation.
- Practice, rehearse and present performances with an awareness of audience.
- Creating and developing musical ideas
- Pupils should learn how to improvise, developing rhythmic and melodic material when performing.
- Explore, choose, combine and organise musical ideas within musical structures.
- Listening and understanding
- Pupils should learn to listen with attention to details and to internalize and recall sounds.
- How the music elements (rhythm, melody, dynamic, timbre, pitch) can be organized in structures in order to create appropriate music styles or "moods".
During Year 5 the students will revise their knowledge from previous years and explore new concepts about:
- Ensemble & Choir Concepts / Working in a Team / Orchestra
- Rhythm & Pulse
- Melody
- Music Theory
- Ear Training
- Music Instruments
- Music Styles and Genres
The teacher will explain each concept’s rules, qualities, potentials, inviting the students to interact and play with them, to be creative and to find their favourite field.
- Ensemble & Choir Concepts / Working in a Team / Orchestra
- During the year the teacher and the students will start to understand and define the “idea” of a work team, aiming to sing, create, listen, arrange, discuss, and discover music together.
- The students will often work (or sing/play) in separated groups and the teacher will guide them on more complex rhytmical or harmonic patterns, according to their responses and abilities.
- Rhythm & Pulse
- Understanding how Metronome and Percussions are strictly related, exercises on a “4/4 measure” and/or more complex structures, starting to improvise, invent and memorize the rhythms.
- Students will listen to different rhythmical patterns (cd or computer) and learn how to interact with them, learning the concept of “moving around the rhythm” and “staying on the rhythm/beat”
- Music is inside and all around us: Teacher will gradually explain that music represents a big “part” of our life , in the way we speak, we breath, our heartbeat, sounds of nature, music from radio/tv/movies
- Creative and rhythmical exercises finding words on a defined pattern and dividing the syllabes according to it
- Melody
- Scales and Arpeggios: choir exercises across the chromatic scale, using piano or guitar
- Exploring the music notes, using numbers and/or letters, what is a TONE?, what is a SEMITONE?
- Possible introduction of the Pentagram, and notation (symbols) according to student’s response
- Songs, with particular attention to diction, tuning of voices, a sense of phrase and musical expression.
- Re-arrangement of a famous song from Rock or Musical genres, the teacher will invite students to express their opinions and ideas on how the song should “sound”
- Music Theory
- Students will gradually start to learn basic notions of music theory.
- Writing notes on pentagram
- Basic Knowledge of music symbols
- EarTraining
- Small introduction about LISTENING, THE HUMAN EAR (generic), perception of sounds, small notions about frequencies
- Introducing (or developing) tuning of notes using numbers (ex. 1=low, 5=Middle, 8= High)
- Activities to improve tuning of the voice and avoid “Out of tune”, wrong note, wrong chord
- Activities about “music puzzles” to stimulate criticism and listening skills (ex. find the wrong note, find the wrong chord)
- Music Instruments
- Discover the “families” of instruments (percussions, wind, strings, voice, keyboards) discuss the quality with students
- Teacher will periodically bring in the class different instruments during the year (Guitar, Bass Guitar, Saxophone, Clarinet, Accordion) the students will have a chance to listen to their sound, play them, express their ideas on how to play them. Explain (generically) HOW the instruments produce sounds (vibrations, strings, air)
- Practice using percussions, flutes and other instruments aiming to create small instrumental songs (if possible)
- Music Styles and Genres
- Periodic “Music Genres” listening to different type of music, like classical, opera, instrumental, rock, folk, jazz. Discuss with students the differences, ask about their music taste.
- Listen to the same song with different arrangements and versions (ex. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” instrumental, sung, big band, orchestral)
Key Stage 3
During Year 7-9 students should get a closer view of music subject learning the basics of music theory, history, and instrumental practice.
- Music Theory and notions
- Students should learn Instruments Families, notions about music history and different genres and styles.
- Learn how to improvise with words and poems and rhythm, creating rhymes and patterns according to a music structure.
- Performing Skills
- Students should learn how to play one music instrument,alone or in "ensemble", being able to read notes on a pentagram and developing listening skills.
- Students should sing in a choir learning how to compose and create their own melodies and songs, or to organize and arrange music elements (pitch, melody, rhythm, structure) in order to create different types of compositions.
- Students will learn the basics to play an instrument (Recorder, guitar, piano) in order to perform in a group or alone several melodies and songs.
- Listening and Understanding
- Students should develop a sens of internal pitch, listen and analize different musical forms, recognize instruments sounds and styles.
During Year 7 the students will develop their knowledge about music theory and practice and make it more consistent:
- History of Music and the role of music in contemporary society
- Rhythm & Pulse (reading and recognizing rhythm patterns)
- Melody (reading and writing notes on pentagram)
- Harmony (first notions about chords)
- Ear Training
- Music Instruments
- Music Styles and Genres (Listening to important composers and artists from music literature)
The teacher will explain each concept’s rules, qualities, potentials, inviting the students to interact and play with them, to be creative and to find their favourite field.
- History of Music and the role of music in contemporary society
- Music Expression: What is Music?; The descriptive and artistic role of music.
- Sounds and noises around us: Definition of sounds, noises, and silence
- Music and mass media: Evolution of technology, from radio to podcast, from phonograms to mp3s
- The “places of music”: From Greek and Roman theatres to Music Auditoriums
- Music of Ancient cultures: Ancient Egyptians, Greek and Roman culture
- From Plainchant (Canto Gregoriano) to Polyphony
- The evolution of music notation: Guido D’Arezzo
- The medieval music tradition outside catholic and christian religion
- Ars Nova
- Il rinascimento musicale
- La musica nel periodo della Riforma - Martin Lutero
- La musica del ‘500 in Italia: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
- Il Barocco: Il melodramma e l’ Oratorio - Claudio Monteverdi
- L’ eta’ del Barocco Italiano: Antonio Vivaldi, Tommaso Albinoni, Domenico Scarlatti
- Il Barocco Tedesco: Bach e Händel
- L’ Opera Buffa e la musica nell’ eta’ dell’ Illuminismo
- Il Classicismo Viennese: Mozart e Haydn
- La musica “nuova” di Ludwig van Beethoven
- Il Romanticismo in Europa
- Le scuole musicali Nazionali
- Dal Romanticismo al Novecento (fino all’ Impressionismo Musicale di Claude Debussy e Maurice Ravel)
- Rhythm & Pulse
- Understanding
- Exercises on a “4/4 measure” and/or more complex structures, starting to improvise, invent and memorize the rhythms.
- Students will listen to different rhythmical patterns (cd or computer) and learn how to interact with them, learning the concept of “moving around the rhythm” and “staying on the rhythm/beat”
- Music is inside and all around us: Teacher will gradually explain that music represents a big “part” of our life , in the way we speak, we breath, our heartbeat, sounds of nature, music from radio/tv/movies
- Creative and rhythmical exercises finding words on a defined pattern and dividing the syllabes according to it
- Melody
- Scales and Arpeggios: choir exercises across the chromatic scale, using piano or guitar
- Exploring the music notes, using numbers and/or letters, what is a TONE?, what is a SEMITONE?
- Possible introduction of the Pentagram, and notation (symbols) according to student’s response
- Songs, with particular attention to diction, tuning of voices, a sense of phrase and musical expression.
- Re-arrangement of a famous song from Rock or Musical genres, the teacher will invite students to express their opinions and ideas on how the song should “sound”. Possible Composition of new songs written by students
- Harmony
- What is a Chord? Use of different chords, create a chord using voices
- Quick definition of Harmony compared to usual life (ex. working in “harmony” with other people)
- Definition of “Major” and “Minor” chords (using moods: Major=Happy / Minor=Sad)
- Harmonization of famous melodies dividing the class in smaller groups to have 2-3 voices
- Possible use of computer software to record and demonstrate the potentials of harmony and/or new arrangements (ex. creation of small songs to put on school blog) according to children’s feedback
- EarTraining
- THE HUMAN EAR, perception of sounds, notions about frequencies, reverb, concentrate on specific sounds/voices
- Introducing (or developing) tuning of notes using numbers (ex. 1=low, 5=Middle, 8= High)
- Activities to improve tuning of the voice and avoid “Out of tune”, wrong note, wrong chord
- Activities about “music puzzles” to stimulate criticism and listening skills (ex. find the wrong note, find the wrong chord)
- Music Instruments
- Learn the “families” of instruments (percussions, wind, strings, voice, keyboards) discuss the quality with students. Recognise instruments in famous compositions (Chamber Music, Symphony, Popular Music, World Music)
- Teacher will periodically bring in the class different instruments during the year (Guitar, Bass Guitar, Saxophone, Clarinet, Accordion) the students will have a chance to listen to their sound, play them, express their ideas on how to play them. Explain HOW the instruments produce sounds (vibrations, strings, air)
- Practice using percussions, flutes and other instruments aiming to create small instrumental songs (if possible)
- Music Styles and Genres
- Periodic “Music Genres” listening to different type of music, like classical, opera, instrumental, rock, folk, jazz. Discuss with students the differences, ask about their music taste.
- Listen to the same song with different arrangements and versions (ex. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” instrumental, sung, big band, orchestral)