Mrs A Taylor	Lead Teacher Performing Arts
Mrs L Barge	Teacher of Music & Pupil Premium Champion
Mr P Rogers	Teacher of Music

Music is an essential subject within the Arts at Purbrook Park with fantastic facilities available to the pupils. We have 5 large practise rooms including a state-of-the-art recording studio which is linked to a huge ‘band room’ for recording and mixing down performances by the students. We have an Apple Imac Suite which allows our music technologists and GCSE students to compose industry standard music which is often shared on our school Facebook page. Our extra-curricular opportunities are endless within Music which showcase the fantastic musical talent of our pupils at Purbrook. Music is the fabric of our society, and at Purbrook we clearly see how music shapes abilities and character. Students in our school Rock Band, Modern Singing Group as well as solo performers often demonstrate how music can greatly contribute to children’s intellectual development as well through their fantastic dedication to learning musical pieces both inside and outside the classroom. Within music lessons at Purbrook, pupils are taught to be more emotionally developed, with empathy towards other cultures which influences both a higher self-esteem and coping with anxiety.

Within key stage 3 lessons we look at developing keyboard skills, vocal skills as well as starting the exciting journey of composing music to a variety of stimuli. We listen to many different styles of music to immerse the pupils in the musical world as well as learning how to play different musical styles in an ensemble. We have a lovely outside amphitheatre which we use to perform Reggae songs in the Summer term which is fantastic for the pupils and always something that they thoroughly enjoy.

Music in KS4 consists of two different routes, firstly the GCSE, which is a fantastic course that offers a diverse range of both practical music and musical theory. The pupils are given the opportunity to perform both as a soloist and as an ensemble as well as composing to a stimulus. This course covers a vast range of music such as: Film Music, Pop Music, the Concerto Through Time and Rhythms of the World, which all capture the pupil’s engagement and allow them to explore a variety of different musical genres.

The second route is the NCFE VCERT in Music Technology which really allows our pupils to understand how to create electronic music using the fantastic musical equipment available at Purbrook. The course takes the pupils through the purpose of a Digital Audio Workstation, then researching a style of music to create their own composition. This is followed on with working within the recording studio here at Purbrook to record a live band, which is always an exciting privilege, as well as producing music and sound effects to a real trailer used in the industry.

Our results in music are reflective of how successful the department is. We offer such a wonderful variety of opportunities for our musicians to perform and are proud to say that our Upper School Rock Band have previously won the Chi Rocks competition as well as the Portsmouth Music Festival, our Modern Singing Group have had amazing performance opportunities linked with Disneyland Paris, Wembley Stadium and performing as backing vocalists for a Pink Floyd tribute band in a large-scale theatre performance! We are always taking part in exciting community projects to show off our musical talent as well as running many in-house concerts, performances and productions. Pupils have the option of taking instrumental lessons alongside their studies with our amazing peripatetic staff which we have found hugely successful in building the skills and techniques of our musicians.

It has been proven time and again that playing or listening to music together will help to create bonds and this is something we cherish at Purbrook. The pupils leave our school with memories that they will never forget and skills that will build character and confidence in their exciting futures.