Key Stage 3 · ages 11 to 14
Key Stage 3 music: what your child learns
In Years 7 to 9, pupils perform confidently alone and in ensembles, improvise and compose in a range of styles, and use staff and other notations. They explore tonalities, different types of scales and other musical devices, use technology appropriately, and listen with increasing discrimination to great composers and musicians, from the Western classical tradition to popular and world music. Schools choose the styles, pieces and notations, so topics vary.
Guides for parents
Key Stage 3 music
Composing with structures and styles
How Key Stage 3 pupils compose and improvise using musical structures, genres and traditions, how a short idea grows into a piece, and ways to help at home.
Key Stage 3 music
Listening with discrimination
How Key Stage 3 pupils learn to listen to music with increasing discrimination, using the musical dimensions to describe and compare, with a model answer and tips.
Key Stage 3 music
Ensemble performance
How Key Stage 3 students learn to perform together in bands, choirs and class groups: listening, balance, timing, leading and recovering, with ideas for parents.
Key Stage 3 music
Improvising and extending ideas
How Key Stage 3 students learn to improvise and develop musical ideas: working within a scale or chord pattern, motifs, question and answer, and how parents can help.
Key Stage 3 music
Using music technology
What Key Stage 3 pupils do with music technology: recording, sequencing, editing and mixing their own work, common misunderstandings and simple ways to support them.
Key Stage 3 music
Ostinato, riffs and musical devices
What musical devices Key Stage 3 pupils meet, such as ostinato, riff, drone, sequence and syncopation, with a worked example of developing a short motif.
Key Stage 3 music
Chord symbols, tab and graphic scores
How Key Stage 3 pupils use chord symbols, guitar tab and graphic scores alongside staff notation, with a worked example of reading tab and tips for home.
Key Stage 3 music
Popular music and world traditions
What Key Stage 3 pupils learn about popular music and music from around the world, how technology fits in, a model blues task, and simple ways to help at home.
Key Stage 3 music
Solo performance
How Key Stage 3 students develop confident solo performance on voice or instrument: fluency, accuracy and expression, effective practice, nerves and how parents can help.
Key Stage 3 music
Using staff notation accurately
What Key Stage 3 pupils need to know about staff notation: clefs, key signatures, time signatures and accidentals, with a worked example and common slips.
Key Stage 3 music
Major, minor and tonality
What tonality means in Key Stage 3 music, how major and minor keys differ, how pupils use them expressively in performing and composing, and ways to help at home.
Key Stage 3 music
Different types of scales
What Key Stage 3 pupils learn about scales beyond major and minor, including pentatonic, blues and chromatic, with a worked example and ideas for helping at home.
Key Stage 3 music
Western classical music and its history
How Key Stage 3 pupils explore the history of Western classical music from medieval chant to the present day, what they listen for, and how you can help at home.
Everything in the Key Stage 3 music curriculum
The National Curriculum topics for Key Stage 3, in the order the National Curriculum lists them.