"Where words fail, music speaks!" Hans Christian Andersen.

Imagine a world where everything is silent. Where memories aren't ignited by song, when the windows are open and the birds don't sing, where church bells fail to ring on a Sunday morning and where the voices of children don't sing . At Madresfield, musicians are born. 

With a curriculum with expression at its heart, note by note, emotions are captured and memories are made. Self-expression and the joy of life's melody start with us. 

Madresfield's map to proficient musicians

The first steps to becoming a successful musician: 

• Listen to the sounds in our environment
• Listen and recite familiar songs
• Clap simple rhythms 
• Explain what I like and dislike about a song

I am 4, my life is a song. Nursery rhymes are the sound of my childhood, I smile when I sing! I feel the need to sing my emotions, I do so unapologetically. The sound of Christmas rings through my body and so does every song of celebration. I clap my friends when I like what I hear, it makes me happy, it makes me proud.

I can:

• Initiate new combinations of sounds to express and respond to feelings, ideas and experiences
• Play co-operatively as part of a group to perform
• Join in with songs and musical games
• Create simple representations of events, people and objects through music or song

KS1 and my life continues to be one, big happy song. I hum while I skip, I dream of Nativity roles, I eagerly await Christmas carols. There are instruments around me: keys to be pressed, notes to be hit and sounds to be blown. Music is more than just my voice and it is exciting! I am inspired by the artists around me. 

I can:

• Use my voice expressively and creatively by singing songs or speaking chants and rhymes
• Play tuned and untuned instruments musically
• Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high quality live and recorded music
• Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the interrelated dimensions of music
• Choose sounds and instruments carefully and make improvements to my own and others words

I'm in KS2 now and although I sing with more reservation, apprehensive of the judgement of my peers... music is still a way of expressing myself when words fail me. I am not just inspired by artists these days, they are my idols and they live the life that I can only dream. I don't tinker with instruments anymore, I read notes that allow me to play melodies, the melodies of my childhood. I use dynamics and tempo to reflect the pace of my life: the chaos and the moments of calm and boredom. 

I can: 

• play and perform in solo and ensembles, using my voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression
• improvise and compose music for a range of purposes 
• listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory
• use and understand staff and other musical notations
• appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians
• develop an understanding of the history of music

It's time for new adventures, Year 7 awaits. Opportunities to try new instruments, to perform in places and to audiences far bigger than before, the use of rehearsal rooms that allow the freedom of expression without judgement. Music will become the soundtrack to my life and because of that my journey is just beginning!