Music

'Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit.  Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.' Ephesians 5:19

Music is an important part of our school.  We sing every day in assembly, with each class having a music lesson each week with our Specialist Music teacher.

We begin to experiment with music in the Foundation Stage, where we sing together and begin composing our own music using a variety of musical (and sometimes non-musical!) instruments.

The children continue this experimentation of music into Key Stage One where the children begin composing their own music and continue their weekly singing lessons, learning a variety of topical and fun songs.  Children in Key Stage One are also in our assemblies everyday and learn our assembly songs with the rest of the school.

Once in Key Stage Two, the composition of music becomes more formal, where children learn to use a variety of digital composition programs too.  The children continue their weekly singing lessons, whether they continue to develop their very own musical instrument, their voice.

Working with peripatetic music teachers, some of our children also learn to play the drums, the keyboard and the ukulele.

Below is a recording of our children singing together, polishing up on their singing of the song Sharing Bread for our Harvest Festival.

Celebrating diversity

We celebrate the diversity of our school population by celebrating the differences between ourselves and also recognising the similarities between ourselves and our families.

In December 2021, a number of KS2 children taught our Music teacher and the rest of their class different verses for one of our Christmas songs in their native language.  

The traditional Polish carol WÅ›ród Nocnej Ciszy, which in English is called "Amid the Silence", is popular in church services and choirs in Poland. 

Kuwa na Krismasi Njema - Swahili for Merry Christmas to You - was a lovely link between our West African drumming work in the first half term (although the language is from East Africa, this was a continuation of exploring music from different regions of Africa).

Year 6 wrote their own song, and included Happy Christmas in different languages in their rap section. The children suggested the different languages linked to their own or friends' heritage so they sang in Arabic, Polish, German, Spanish and French!