Music at Greenhill
At Greenhill, we believe that music is an important part of a broad, ambitious and inclusive curriculum. We want every child to experience the enjoyment of making music, develop confidence and creativity, and have opportunities to sing, listen, perform, compose and make music with others.
Our Music Curriculum
We work in partnership with Bury Music Service, who provide specialist curriculum teaching across the school from Nursery to Year 6. Our curriculum is designed to build pupils’ musical knowledge and skills progressively, developing singing, listening, performing, composing, improvising and musical understanding. Pupils encounter a broad range of instruments, repertoire, musical traditions, composers and styles as they move through school.
In Early Years, music is woven throughout our continuous provision through singing, rhymes, movement, rhythm, sound exploration and opportunities to use instruments. Alongside this, Nursery and Reception receive a bespoke specialist music session from Bury Music Service on alternate weeks. This provides a carefully sequenced musical journey through EYFS and into Year 1, helping children develop early understanding of pulse, pitch, rhythm, melody and musical expression.
In Key Stage 1, specialist teaching builds on these foundations through singing, tuned and untuned instruments, listening and responding to high-quality music, and creating and combining sounds.
In Key Stage 2, pupils develop increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression in performance; improvise and compose; develop their listening and aural memory; encounter musical notation; explore music from different traditions and historical periods; and use music technology where appropriate.
Our provision is delivered through Bury Music Service's Bronze Package, with lessons based on the Bury Music Curriculum and taught by experienced specialist music teachers to support consistency and progression across the school.
Singing at Greenhill
Singing is central to our musical culture. Alongside singing within curriculum lessons, pupils take part in whole-school singing assemblies, developing vocal technique, musical memory, confidence and, importantly, the enjoyment of singing together as a school community.
We also provide free extra-curricular choir opportunities, including a Reception and Key Stage 1 Choir and a Key Stage 2 Choir, offered as before- and after-school provision. These give children further opportunities to sing as an ensemble, learn and rehearse repertoire and work towards performances.
Our choirs have opportunities to perform within school and, where available, in the wider community. Our KS2 choir also has opportunities to participate in larger collaborative musical experiences, including Young Voices in Manchester.
Listening to Music
We want our children to become curious, knowledgeable and open-minded listeners as well as performers. Music is therefore deliberately woven into our wider school life.
Our assembly music is carefully planned to introduce children to a wide range of musical styles, genres, artists and traditions. We begin close to home, introducing children to musicians and artists from our local area, before gradually broadening their musical horizons to explore artists from across the North West, the wider United Kingdom and internationally.
Through this planned journey, children encounter music from different periods, cultures and traditions and develop an increasingly broad musical vocabulary and appreciation. Assembly music gives us an additional opportunity to celebrate our local musical heritage while helping children recognise that music is both part of the community they belong to and something that connects them to people and cultures across the world.
Learning an Instrument
Children who would like to take their musical learning further can access instrumental tuition during the school day, delivered by visiting specialist teachers and paid for by parents.
Our current instrumental offer includes children learning violin, cello and guitar. We work with Bury Music Service to promote individual and small-group instrumental tuition and to create routes for pupils who demonstrate a particular interest or aptitude in music to continue developing their skills.
Where appropriate, Pupil Premium funding may be used to help remove financial barriers to instrumental tuition.
Performance and Musical Experiences
We want children not simply to learn music, but to experience what it means to be a musician. During their time at Greenhill, pupils have opportunities to perform for others, listen to live and recorded music, rehearse collaboratively and learn how to be both confident performers and respectful audiences.
Our Music Development Plan establishes a termly entitlement to meaningful musical sharing and performance. Across the year, opportunities include Christmas performances and our Carol Service, curriculum sharing opportunities, choir performances, a spring music showcase, a whole-school summer music performance and our Year 6 end-of-year production.
We also seek opportunities for instrumental pupils to perform and, where possible, for children to experience live musicians, collaborative events and specialist workshops. We want performance to be a normal part of musical life at Greenhill rather than something reserved only for major productions.
Music for Everyone
Our ambition is that every child sees themselves as someone who can participate in and enjoy music. We monitor participation in choirs, instrumental tuition, performances and enrichment so that pupils with SEND, disadvantaged pupils and other potentially under-represented groups are actively encouraged and supported to take part.
We continue to work closely with Bury Music Service to evaluate and develop our provision through pupil voice, lesson visits and performance evidence. During 2026–27, we are particularly focused on strengthening progression from Nursery to Reception to Year 1, increasing performance opportunities, broadening the range of music children hear and perform, and making musical achievement increasingly visible and celebrated throughout our school community.
At Greenhill, music is more than a weekly lesson. It is part of the life of our school – heard in our classrooms and assemblies, experienced through singing and instruments, and celebrated through performances that give every child opportunities to listen, participate, create and perform.
Music Development Plan 2025-26
Music Development Plan 2026-27
Please see our Music Development Plan for 2024/25 here:
music development plan summary template example .pdf
