We aim to make music a key part of life at Park Primary school and provide children with a wide range of musical opportunities within their lessons as well as outside the curriculum.
KS1 take part in 3 units of topic-related music lessons over each academic year (for example a unit on sea shanties to accompany the year 1 ‘Explorers’ topic and a unit on African song and drumming patterns for the year 2 ‘UK and Kenya’ topic). These lessons provide the children with opportunities to explore and compose with tuned and untuned percussion instruments.
Year 3 take part in fortnightly flutaphone lessons, which involve introducing musical notation and new vocabulary
Year 4 take part in fortnightly ukulele lessons, building on their knowledge of musical notation and performing. With the help of the exciting organisation ‘Musical Futures’ the year 4 teachers are currently trialling a new approach to whole class music teaching which involves creating a class band with guitar, ukulele, drums, bass and keyboards. Watch this space for new developments!
Year 5 and 6 take part in weekly guitar lessons with a peripatetic teacher, building on their previous experiences of playing an instrument, performing and using musical notation.
The children also take part in weekly singing assemblies for each key phase. The singing assemblies build on the children’s learning from their music lessons and class topics and encourage a progression in singing skills such as harmony singing and singing songs in different musical genres.
Years 1-6 also take part in Musical Appreciation lessons as part of their fortnightly CAT day provision. These lessons give them the opportunity to listen to music from different places in the world and periods of history and respond in different ways – through art, discussion and creative writing.
Musical opportunities outside the curriculum include after school music and guitar ensemble clubs, KS1 and KS2 choirs, a music group for children with SEND and in school performances by professional musicians (for example a folk musician and steel pan group). Park are also involved with a number of projects run by Newham Music including Newham Grooves (an instrumental project) and Newham Harmony (a massed choirs singing project).