Music in Place and Time
To follow progression of musical skills from EYFS to Year 6.
Follow the progression of one musical skill through the school. Listening and responding and how this filters into other skills such as performing and composing.
Chinese New Year - Reception
Reception listened to a variety of music from China as part of their project on Chinese New Year. They moved to different styles of Chinese music as they retold the story of the race of the animals. They played small percussion instruments along with the music for the dragon dance. Finally they performed the story and the dragon dance in their class assembly.
Great Fire of London - Year 2
Year 2 have learnt about the Fire of London. They listened to music from 17th Century, discussed a painting of King Charles II dancing a minuet and then leant a minuet to this music. They performed ‘London’s Burning’ as a canon in assembly and then worked on playing a canon of the song with tuned percussion, focussing on keeping a beat in their head while playing together.
Minimalist Music - Year 4
Year 4 began a project on minimalist music. After listening to composer Steve Reich’s piece, ‘Drumming part IV’, they began by re visiting simple rhythmic notation. They then composed simple ostinato patterns. They performed them, building up texture with different patterns using body percussion, objects in class and then untuned percussion instruments. Finally they are now adding pitch to their compositions by using only four notes, in the minimalist style.
Historical Instruments
Year 5 listened to the sound of different Tudor instruments and compared them with modern equivalents. They also discovered that one of Henry VIII’s favoured musicians was a trumpeter known as John Blanke, one of very few black court musicians of the time. They listened to the music of Wolf Hall by Debbie Wiseman. They explored how her music portrays the different emotions felt by Anne Boleyn.
