Music
Here at Craneswater, we aim for all children to access a wide range of musical opportunities, in order to develop their musical creativity, confidence and love of music. We believe that all children can be musicians!
Pupils at Craneswater enjoy weekly whole school singing assemblies that cover a range of songs, styles and themes. Throughout the key stage, our children listen and reflect on different pieces of music; explore different aspects of music such as pitch, rhythm and timbre; use simple notation; explore the social and cultural meaning of music; perform, compose and evaluate simple pieces of music and create a whole year group performance.
At Craneswater, the following instrumental and vocal lessons are on offer in small group classes:
Guitar, keyboard, singing, ukulele, violin, woodwind (flute, clarinet, saxophone) and brass (trumpet and others).
Children also have the opportunity to sign up to Rocksteady music lessons, where they learn to play instruments in a band format. You can find out more about Rocksteady here: https://www.rocksteadymusicschool.com/
Instrumental teachers prepare regular pupil concerts throughout the year to which parents are invited.
Whenever possible, our pupils participate in music workshops, live music performances and concerts.
Pupils at Craneswater got together with other pupils from across the city to celebrate Ceilidh Week. You can watch the highlights in the Portsmouth Music Hub video and photo gallery below. Well done to all the pupils involved for their fantastic contribution to the event!
Overview
Year 3
Autumn
Performance and listening –
Introduction to the music room
Musical focus: finding the pulse, singing and play songs with increasing confidence, listen to and recall sounds, begin to develop an understanding of graphic notation, perform a layered piece of music inspired by the Ancient Egyptians
Cross-curricular link: History
Spring
Performance - Easter production
Musical focus: ensemble singing increasing confidence, understand the religious meaning Cross curricular link: RE
Summer
Composition - Class orchestra
Musical focus: Explore melodic phrases and rhythm, consider the intended effect of music and identify and classify different instruments.
Cross-curricular link: Geographical locations
Composer – George Gershwin
Listen and reflect on a piece of orchestral music, use appropriate musical vocabulary, create their own pieces and perform as an ensemble.
Year 5
Autumn
Composer – Hans Zimmer
Listen and reflect on a piece of orchestral music, use appropriate musical vocabulary, improvise their own pieces of music and perform as an ensemble.
Performance - Christmas production
Musical focus: ensemble singing with confidence and precision, develop an understanding of the context of music
Cross curricular link: RE
Spring
Listening - Solar System
Musical focus: understand how pulse, rhythm and pitch work together, improvisation, appraisal of music and historical context (Gustav Holst)
Cross-curricular link: Science
Summer
Composition - At the movies
Musical focus: social and cultural meaning of music, history and context, lyric writing and song structure, compose and evaluate pieces
Cross-curricular link: Literacy
Year 4
Autumn
Performance - Harvest production
Musical focus: ensemble singing with confidence, performance appraisal
Cross-curricular link: RE
Composer – Ravi Shankar
Listen and reflect on a piece of orchestral music, use appropriate musical vocabulary, improvise their own pieces of music and perform as an ensemble.
Spring
Environment unit
Musical focus: understand timbre, evaluate music, and compose a short piece.
Cross curricular link: Science
Summer
Pitch - Around the world
Musical focus: pitch, follow simple notation, explore pentatonic melodies and syncopated rhythms, learn that the dimensions of music are the same across the world
Cross-curricular link: Geography
Year 6
Autumn
Ukulele
Musical focus: perform in an ensemble, play an instrument with increasing accuracy, fluency/control, beat & syncopation, rhythm skills & notation (chords)
Notation - Graphic scores
Musical focus: Research a great composer, appreciation of historical context, creating graphic scores, developing a deeper understanding of the history and context of music.
Spring
Song writing
Musical focus: improvise & compose, developing a deeper understanding of the history and context of music, evaluating how purpose affects the way a piece of music sounds and composing within a given structure. (Macbeth, musical theatre, rap)
Cross-curricular link: Literacy
Summer
Composer - Delia Derbyshire
Musical focus: Listen and reflect on a piece of orchestral music, use appropriate musical vocabulary, create their own pieces using technology and perform as an ensemble.
Performance - Leavers
Musical focus: perform as ensemble with full confidence and precision, develop an understanding of the context of music
Cross-curricular link: PSHE