Statutory Curricula and Guidance | musicaltoolbox.co.uk

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"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” (anon*)

Statutory guidance

National curriculum in England

programmes of study

(updated 26 March 2021)

Teaching Music in Schools

Model Music Curriculum

(published 26 March 2021) NB this is non-statutory so there is no requirement to follow it

Research Review Series: Music

A review of research into factors that influence the quality of music education in schools in England

(published 12 July 2021)

Hwb

Curriculum for Wales

Expressive Arts

(updated January 2021)

Experiences and Outcomes

(as at July 2021)

Musical Development Matters

(published September 2018, now expressly included in the EYFS Strategy)

The Arts/Music

(as at July 2021)

Eire

(as at July 2021)

Primary

National Strategy

Letters and Sounds

(as at July 2021)

National Plan for Music Education
UK, July 2022

OFSTED's Subject Report Series: Music
UK, September 2023

Primary Music Toolkit
written by Dr. Alison Daubney to help teachers better understand what music teaching is and how it can be utilised (2019)

Primary Skills Progression
This document is my personal skills progression. It has been developed over several years and is necessarily flexible and under continuous review. It audits well against the Model Music Curriculum, although my progression in rhythm notation differs (I don't like what the MMC does in this regard!). Clicking the link will download an editable Excel spreadsheet with each strand as a different tab.

Find your Music Service/Hub by clicking the link to Arts Council England - scroll down to their XLS document. Music hubs have a variety of things to offer from instrumental and curriculum teaching by specialist peripatetic teachers to providing support and training for classroom teachers. They administer and provide First Access projects (subsidised and in some areas free for at least the first half term). Some provide free curriculum resources to support classroom teaching, extending to entire units of work in some cases - some of these are available to all, other hubs require you to be a "member" which typically means belonging to a school within their catchment.

Music Mark provides advice, training and links to free and paid for resources. Become a Music Mark member through your music hub who can sign you up free of charge.

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