What a wonderful term of Music! Year 3 have continued to enjoy learning to play the ukulele, progressing to changing between chords, strumming in different rhythms and exploring different picking patterns. Children have used different ways to read music such as staff notation and fret maps and are becoming very skilled at noticing difference in pitch (sharp or flat) when tuning up.
In Year 4, Ian Draycott from Norfolk Music Service has finished his time teaching the children to play the steel pans. This is a deceptively challenging instrument and all pupils have done incredibly well, not only at handling the beaters and playing the notes but also learning to perform with others as part of an ensemble. We are very grateful to Norfolk Music Hub for giving our children this opportunity.
The children in Year 5 have spent the term leading up to Christmas learning to play carols on the recorder. If you played recorder at school you will be well aware how easy it is to play recorder badly! Children have had to develop sensitivity of breath to avoid those shrill squeaks and a lot of dexterity to achieve the quick fingering needed to play the pieces. (Due to COVID pupils did not have the opportunity to play recorders last year so we have given them a real challenge.) This unit has also given pupils a chance to put their learning of standard notation into context.
Year 6 pupils have been investigating Jazz and Blues. Listening to both classic Music from the 20’s and contemporary pieces and gaining an understanding of the structure and conventions of these genres. This unit gives children an opportunity to further develop their improvisation on the glockenspiels, responding and replying to a theme in the moment.
On the final day of term, the whole federation came together to enjoy a streamed ‘virtual’ pantomime – ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. In addition to usual Music lessons, children had spent time learning the songs used in the performance so that we could all sing along. They also learnt about the conventions, characters and customs of pantomime so that it could be a fully interactive experience with ‘Booo’s, ‘Hooray’s and shouts of ‘It’s behind you!’. Did we enjoy it?
“OH YES WE DID!”