Year 6 Music Curriculum Map (KS2)

• 

  Vocal warm-ups, Motown/Disco/80s Pop dance & project songs

  Every lesson opens with voice and groove, then returns to the song.

  In each term, sessions begin with a short vocal warm up and movement linked to the current style:

  • Vocal Warm Up 1–5 – fast, studio-based routines to focus breath, pitch and projection before singing This Time It’s Different, Just Dance or When I’m With You.
  • Dance: Motown 1–3, Dance: Disco 1–4, Dance: 80s Pop 1–4 and Dance: Rhythmic Pyramid 1–3 – style-based movement that makes groove, back-beat and off-beat hi-hat patterns physical.
  • Watch: Motown / Disco / 80s Pop Music Video – modelling vocal style, band roles and stage presence.
  • Perform: Motown Song, Perform: Disco Song and Perform: 80s Pop Song, plus Motown / Disco / 80s Pop (Karaoke), so pupils move from led performance to more independent singing.

  By the end of the year, Year 6 pupils can perform all three project songs with confidence, movement and a clear sense of style, ready for secondary ensembles.

• 

  Rhythms 1–4, Beat Blox, Beat the Grid & Forbidden Rhythms

  Layered rhythm “engines” that power Motown, Disco and 80s Pop.

  Year 6 rhythm work is deliberately challenging, but broken into small, repeatable tasks:

  • Learn: Rhythms 1–4 in Motown, Disco and 80s Pop contexts – extending everything pupils learned in Year 5 about note values and rests.
  • Weekly Drum Routine 7–8 – higher-level desk drumming where kick, snare and hi-hat patterns must lock together.
  • Beat Blox Parts 1–5 and Full – building layered rhythmic “blocks” before applying them under the project songs.
  • Beat the Grid Parts 1–6 – reading and playing increasingly dense rhythms from a grid, linking counting and notation.
  • Forbidden Rhythms (Explained, Hi-Hat, Hi-Hat Variation, Kick Drum) – challenges where pupils must not play the “forbidden” pattern, testing listening and control.
  • Musical Morse Code Level 3 Codes A–E – rhythm encoding/decoding using patterns drawn from the three projects.

  These strands mean that by the end of Year 6, pupils can read, feel and coordinate complex grooves that sit comfortably within Motown, Disco and 80s Pop tracks.

• 

  Minor pentatonic, scales, intervals & What’s the Pitch?

  Hearing and describing how notes move in Motown, Disco and 80s Pop.

  Pitch and interval work in Year 6 sits right alongside the project songs:

  • The Minor Pentatonic Scale – exploring the Motown vocal language behind This Time It’s Different.
  • Ascending and Descending Scale – secure stepwise movement before secondary-level work.
  • Tones and Semitones, plus separate lessons on major and minor scale versions – seeing and hearing how scales are built.
  • What’s the Pitch? 1, 1a, 1b, 1c; 2, 2a, 2b, 2c; 3, 3a, 3b; 4, 4a, 4b – a structured sequence where pupils identify and describe intervals on the stave and by ear.
  • What is an Interval? and Perfect, Imperfect and Dissonant Intervals – giving pupils the language to talk about how intervals sound, not just where they are drawn.

  This means Year 6 pupils leave primary school with a working understanding of scales, tones/semitones and intervals that secondary music teachers can build on immediately.

• 

  Harmony, triads & Musical Cabbage

  Quick decisions about chord quality and fluent note reading.

  Although Year 6 is strongly rhythmic, there is still a clear harmony strand:

  • Major and Minor Triads – connecting intervals and scale degrees to chord construction, especially in Disco harmony.
  • Harmony: Major or Minor? Variations #7–12 – aural decision-making about chord quality across Motown and Disco terms.
  • Musical Cabbage Variations #1–14 – layered across all three terms to keep note names and simple reading fluent while other skills become more demanding.
  • Accidentals in Music – sharpening awareness of sharps, flats and naturals in melodic and harmonic contexts.

  By revisiting these harmony tools in small chunks, Year 6 pupils gain the confidence to talk about chords and intervals alongside rhythm and style.

• 

  Listening, artists, Konnakol & retrieval

  From Stevie Wonder to Prince, with lots of quick checks on the way.

  Throughout Year 6, listening, artist studies and retrieval keep knowledge secure:

  • Critical Listening: Motown, Disco and 80s Pop – hearing how rhythm sections, vocals and harmony work together in each style.
  • Music Detective: Motown 1–5, Disco 1–5 and 80s Pop 1–5 – spotting missing parts and changes in texture, dynamics and instrumentation.
  • “Who is Stevie Wonder?”, “Who is Aretha Franklin?”, “Who is Marvin Gaye?”, “Who is Dusty Springfield?”, “Who is Gloria Gaynor?”, “Who are Sister Sledge?”, “Who are Earth, Wind and Fire?”, “Who are The Bee Gees?”, “Who is Donna Summers?”, “Who is Madonna?”, “Who is Celine Dion?”, “Who is Whitney Houston?”, “Who is Prince?” and “Who is David Bowie?”.
  • Konnakol (Overview/Workshop) – exploring spoken rhythm syllables to support precision and subdivision in all three projects.
  • Retrieval tasks such as Crosswords, Find the Words, True or False, Matching and Order games to revisit vocabulary on dynamics, tempo, rhythm, pitch, instruments, forms and world music.

  This strand ensures that Year 6 pupils don’t just do music — they can talk about it using accurate, age-appropriate terminology.

Across the 18 sessions, a typical Year 6 Motown/Disco/80s Pop lesson uses around thirteen short activities, grouped into strands like this:
1) Vocal Warm Up (1–5)   2) Dance: Motown / Disco / 80s Pop   3) Dance: Rhythmic Pyramid (1–3)   4) Learn: style focus (e.g. What is Motown? / Disco? / 80s Pop?)   5) Learn: rhythm focus (Rhythms 1–4 / Note Values / Tones and Semitones)   6) Weekly Drum Routine 7–8   7) Beat Blox and/or Beat the Grid   8) Forbidden Rhythms or Musical Morse Code Level 3   9) What’s the Pitch? (1–4 sequences)   10) Harmony / triads / Major or Minor?   11) Musical Cabbage (reading and interval recall)   12) Listening & artists (Critical Listening / Music Detective / “Who is…?”)   13) Perform: This Time It’s Different / Just Dance / When I’m With You (song / karaoke) and a short retrieval or workbook task.
This gives you a clearly sequenced, inspectable pathway from secure KS2 musicianship into the demands of Key Stage 3.