Schools Project Goes from Strength to Strength
Working with our delivery partner, Sing Education, we're now providing curriculum-based music lessons in primary schools across the region. All children participate in both a music lesson and singing assembly at least once a week plus the opportunity to take part in a choir or music club.
During their first half term, our schools had their first taste of Sing Education’s exciting music curriculum. Every half term, children will progress on to a new scheme of work. As the year progresses, activities will culminate in several performances.
Reception - Music Stepping Stones
This unit prepares the children for the key musical elements of pitch and pulse. Through singing games, songs and rhymes, children will learn to hold a steady pulse, try pitch-matching and begin to experience solo singing. The pupils will develop the ability to work with different tempos and dynamics, play instruments and use props to reinforce pulse and learn basic techniques on tuned percussion.
Year 1 - Starting Out With Music
This unit begins to introduce the children to some of the fundamental principles of music. Children explore the concepts of high and low pitch and learn about the steady heartbeat of music, the pulse. Pitch, pulse and rhythm are reinforced through learning songs and chants and using tuned and untuned percussion and props.
Year 2 - Food and Drink
Through songs, rhymes and musical games, this unit teaches and reinforces the basic musical concepts of pitch, pulse and rhythm. The unit also encourages children to discover and develop improvisation and solo singing skills.
Year 3 - Glockenspiel 2
After learning the key musical terms pitch, pulse and rhythm, this knowledge is reinforced through songs and games. Children will then learn to apply these skills to playing the glockenspiel.
Year 4 - Introduction to Music
This unit combines material from previous schemes of work such as Food and Drink, Glockenspiel 1 and World Music, to give year 4 classes a varied start to their music curriculum and to get them ‘up to speed’ with some of the musical knowledge and understanding required.
Year 5 and 6 - Glockenspiel 4
This unit develops the pupils’ knowledge of pitch, pulse and rhythm. After reinforcing pitches and rhythms through songs, chants and games, children will learn to apply these skills to playing the glockenspiel. Throughout the unit, children will have the opportunity to play and sing solo, and as part of a group ensemble. Musical ideas will be reinforced through use of props, flashcards, the whiteboard and untuned percussion.
Alongside this, most of our partner schools are also receiving extra-curricular activities that complement what the children are learning in their music lessons and enrich their musical knowledge even further. These include singing assemblies, where the children can experience the joy of singing full songs as part of a large group. This often involves a whole key stage or even the whole school. We also run lunchtime or after school choirs, which gives groups of children a chance to improve their singing skills and tackle more complex material. Through one of our schools, we are running an after-school music club which gives children of all ages the opportunity to learn more about certain instruments and musical elements.
As the year progresses, a lot of our extra-curricular activities will culminate in exciting performance opportunities for the children. We know that some of our schools will be working towards Christmas services and performances which will give them the opportunity to showcase their skills after the first term of input from Sing Education. One other big project that some of our children will begin to work towards is their contribution to the Ryedale Festival, due to take place in the summer term.