Music
The National Curriculum states:
“Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.”
Here at Brompton Westbrook, we are proud of the music education and opportunities we offer. Through our approach to our curriculum delivery, underpinned by our pedagogy, our curriculum aims mirror those of the National curriculum, in that all pupils:
- Perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians
- Learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, use technology appropriately and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of musical excellence
- Understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the inter-related dimensions [formally referred to as musical elements]: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.
Essentially, we want to give all children a love and understanding of music.
Our work towards developing children’s natural creativity begins in Reception as we encourage children to sing songs, make music and dance, and experiment with ways of changing these alongside representing their own ideas, thoughts and feelings through art, music and dance.
In Key Stage One, children use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes, play tuned and untuned instruments musically, listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality music and experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music previously referenced.
In Key Stage Two, children are taught to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory. They play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression and improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music. They listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory and appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians to develop an understanding of the history of music. They are taught to use and understand staff and other (e.g. ‘tab’) musical notations.
At Brompton Westbrook we always seek opportunities for partnership and support. Furthermore, children in Key Stage Two have the opportunity to pursue small group peripatetic music lessons on a variety of instruments regardless of financial status.
The whole school has opportunities to learn hymns and songs, including part singing, songs from other cultures, rounds, modern, traditional and newly released songs, traditional and modern hymns and songs for worship. As a school who believe in the importance of working with others in our local community, we are proud to be involved in music education in other settings in partnership with organisations such as the Medway Teaching Schools Alliance, Dynamics (the Medway Music Education Hub) and Medway Music Association and not to forget Mr Lock, our wonderful Music lead from Byron Primary School who helps us with our learning and love of music! You can follow his work here: https://twitter.com/MusicSLE
https://twitter.com/EnsembleByron
GENERAL MUSIC ACTIVITY IDEAS - SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES:
There are plenty of daily activities here: https://www.outoftheark.co.uk/ootam-at-home/
This https://learning-platform.roh.org.uk/create-and-learn has some lovely wider arts education activities.
Make junk instruments from your recycling with this guide: http://www.beatgoeson.co.uk/junk-percussion-guide/
Take part in some online singing: https://youtu.be/Gxk0LAnPwr0 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaAn6bWypQY or http://www.fridayafternoonsmusic.co.uk/ or https://collins.co.uk/pages/support-learning-at-home-free-childrens-song-bank
Learn about the instruments of the orchestra here: https://www.royalalberthall.com/about-the-hall/news/2020/april/meet-the-orchestra-with-alberts-band/
A parent found this activity and sent it in: https://www.classicsforkids.com/
Evelyn Glennie proves you don’t need instruments to make music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SRqDPT7ZDk
if you and your family love singing try this free trial of Sing Up at home https://www.singup.org/singupathome/
EARLY YEARS MUSICAL IDEAS:
Listen to 'Carnival of the Animals' https://youtu.be/1L993HNAa8M and think about each animal as you listen to each section of the music. Can you walk on the spot or move around the room to the pulse (or ‘beat’)? The pulse will be fast for some animals and slow for others. Maybe you could move around just like the animals would? When you’ve finished, you could draw your favourite animal and write down some words (or ask your grown-up to help you) describing the music of your favourite animal.
You can find nursery rhymes and simple songs to sing here: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resources/parents/parents-birth-to-five/nursery-rhymes-and-songs-early-years-parents
There are some lovely activities from the BBC here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/bring-the-noise/eyfs-early-years-music/zhm7wty/
4 EYFS suitable ‘Body Beats’ activities from Ollie from ‘Beat Goes On’:
for context, you might want to watch this first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02nzFHmgPGk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW2DY1OpgrI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOh1P1ZcTaU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj-oLQYZOmM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69dYVIq5q9E
ACTIVITIES FOR KEY STAGE 1 :
BBC Ten Pieces classical music activities for younger children:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ten-pieces/classical-music-early-years/znvhrj6
More music learning ideas from the BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/bring-the-noise/key-stage-1-music/zvnhxyc
Browser based music software: https://leicestershiremusichub.org/ks1-music-tech
KEY STAGE 2 MUSIC IDEAS:
BBC Ten Pieces activities for older primary children:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ten-pieces/primary-resources-ks2--2nd-level/z6xjrj6
Perform your own mini-musical with these: https://www.theschoolmusicalscompany.com/collections/home-learning-resources-songs-and-scenes
This is the first of several Body Beats activity videos (do them all!): https://youtu.be/j4mZhv9HS-g
KS2 Browser based music software: https://leicestershiremusichub.org/ks2-music-tech
Weekly activities from BBC Ten Pieces:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ten-pieces/watch-this-do-this-weekly-activities/zjy3382
Older primary pupils would also enjoy experimenting with writing their own music – see the Composing software and ideas section below.
IF YOU LIKE COMPOSING MUSIC AND LOVE COMPUTING ...
Composing software & ideas:
https://www.icancompose.com/inspiration/ (these could also be used as a great listening resource)
https://www.mfy.org.uk/about/education/classroom/
Children with access to iPhones, iPads or Mac computers will find GarageBand a great way to compose too. It is free from the App Store. This document explains how it can be used https://transformancemusic.org/product/teaching-music-garageband-ipad-2nd-edition-donate/
This contains a list of further music education iPad apps: https://leicestershiremusichub.org/free-secondary-music-technology
Mac users can also download GarageBand’s big brother, Logic Pro X, free for 90 days https://www.apple.com/logic-pro/ (and if you like making your own pop music videos in iMovie, you can get Final Cut Pro free for 90 days too from the Apple website)
Steinberg are offering 60days free of their Mac & PC software (before May 15th): https://new.steinberg.net/stayhome/
Audacity is available for Windows users too https://www.audacityteam.org/
Bandlab starter songwriting course: https://learning.inclusivemusic.com/courses/bandlab-for-schools-free-covid-19-edition
This link contains links to some other software too: https://www.kent-music.com/news/keep-music-education-going-at-home/
