PSP Music by Playful Scholarship Portfolio - Curriculum

PSP Music

Playful Scholarship Portfolio - Curriculum

Only available to students of Wimbledon High School GDST.

The Music PSP Pathway develops confident, expressive musicians who combine technical mastery with critical and creative insight. From Foundation to Advanced levels, this pathway fosters depth in performance, composition, and musicological analysis, while encouraging students to lead, collaborate, and innovate across the school’s cultural life.

Foundation PSP (Years 7–8) introduces students to a wide range of musical genres through practical and theoretical tasks. Topics such as Keyboard Skills, Loops & Layers, Baroque Music (Handel’s Messiah), and Rock Music (Queen’s Killer Queen) provide stimuli for individual tasks, group work, and collaborative music-making. Students learn about the musical elements and how to apply them in composition, performance, and analysis.

Pathways PSP (Years 9–11) refines students’ creative and evaluative skills through the GCSE Music course, which is divided into three components: performance, composition, and appraisal. In performance, students prepare and record a live piece at or above Grade 5 standard, supported by in-class practice and peer appraisal. In composition, students create two original works—one in response to a set brief and one free—developing their ideas through multiple drafts, individual tutorials, and peer critique. In appraisal, students study a range of set works, from Star Wars: Main Title/Rebel Blockade Runner to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. They learn to analyse music both aurally and through scores, producing coherent and comprehensive written appraisals.

Advanced PSP (Years 12–13) deepens students’ expertise in performance, composition, and musicological analysis. In performance, students work to a high technical standard—typically ABRSM Grade 8 or above—on an instrument or voice of their choice. They refine expressive control, stage presence, and interpretative understanding through solo and ensemble work. In composition, students develop two substantial original pieces—one to a set brief and one free—demonstrating mastery of musical structure, instrumentation, harmonic language, and stylistic idiom. In appraisal, students explore a wide range of set works and unfamiliar listening examples, spanning genres and periods from Baroque concertos and Classical opera to 20th-century jazz, experimental music, and film scores. They analyse musical elements, form, and context with increasing precision, developing a scholarly voice in extended written responses and timed essays.

The Music PSP Pathway cultivates the confidence, discipline, and creativity essential not only for artistic careers but for any field that values expression, collaboration, innovation, and resilience