Deep dive for music

Three Hampshire Primary schools have experienced a deep dive for music recently. Here is an account of the experience from one of these. We hope you find it useful and would like to say a big thank you to this school (who would like to remain anonymous) for sharing their experience.

Ofsted - Music Deep Dive

We recently had our Ofsted inspection and I have been asked to write about the Deep Dive for music. The choice of music as a subject for a Deep Dive came as a huge surprise to us all. The inspector asked questions about our planning- how we plan and what material we use. I was grateful for the Hampshire Music Service modules that we use and couldn't praise them enough; we benefit from the service's hard work. The framework of Hampshire Music Service's Pathway to Musical Independence has provided us with a body of work that is varied, creative and detailed, covering the progression of skills in detail and teaches the dynamics of music in a way that we could not replicate.

"A Year of Listening" has recently been accessed by all the year groups and the requirement for a choir has raised the profile of singing in our school. Hampshire Music's provision of the Vocal Ambassadors project was something I had not heard of before last autumn so I was grateful for the communication from the Hampshire Music Service, promoting that. Our four ambassadors have really enjoyed taking on the responsibility on behalf of the school. The Hampshire Music Service had met with me in the autumn and helped me to understand how music needs to be an integral part of the culture of the school rather than an add-on subject.

For the inspection, two classes were observed having music lessons and I had to give feedback as to how I perceived the lessons had gone. In my subject leadership plan, I tried to cover the areas of music that were already established, what had been introduced and in progress and finally, what needed to be addressed. Questions asked were to do with the curriculum and my knowledge of staff, and SEND accessibility. I was also asked about recording and assessment.

Music is an ongoing journey for us as a school and I understand that as long as we as teachers know where we are on that journey then the path ahead is clear. I would like to thank the Hampshire Music Service team for all their hard work and expertise that has gone into providing Hampshire schools with such a varied and extensive range of music resources and curriculum modules to access - for free!