Music News

Find out what we have been up to recently

For more information speak to our Music Leader - Sarah Lloyd

• Wednesday 17 July 2024 Y6 composition Y6 finished the year exploring melody and chords. They choose a chord sequence and composed a melody using notes from the chord which they wrote on staff notation. Finally they accompanied each other on ukuleles to perform their own pieces.
• Tuesday 16 July 2024 Y1 Big Seaside Sing This afternoon our Y1 children joined together with children from Hightown Primary and St Monica Primary to perform for their families at Itchen College. The children had been preparing pieces of music inspired by the seaside, creating dances in response to seaside music and learning lots of different songs.
• Tuesday 25 June 2024 Y5/6 Summer Concert Wow! What an amazing concert this morning. Our families loved hearing all the performances this morning. A huge well done to all our musicians and our fantastic teachers - Mr Hanchett, Mrs Porter and Mr Farrenden.
• Wednesday 19 June 2024 My Paper Boat Y2 and EY had a fantastic afternoon enjoying the 'My Paper Boat' performance. The children loved the musician actors and were gripped by the storyline. The children sang brilliantly as their part of the performance and will be exploring more musical learning following the show. Thank you to the MAST Mayflower for offering our children such a wonderful opportunity.
• Friday 22 March 2024 Welsh National Opera
• Wednesday 20 March 2024 Y6 Jazz! Y6 have been exploring the Giants of Jazz; listening to pieces of music by prominent Jazz musicians and composers. Alongside listening and singing 'Giants of Jazz' Y6 have been improving their playing and improvising skills. On Wednesday they performed their final piece! Listen to this!
• Thursday 7 March 2024 Panie Janie! Y5 have explored tuned percussion and learnt Panie Janie! They then tried to use 'dots' to notate the melody.
• Thursday 29 February 2024 'Lilac' by Mammoths Mammoth class have been finished their piece, 'Lilac'.
• Monday 19 February 2024 Y2 Recorder Y2 are really excited to start their recorder lessons! Please ask your child what notes they know so far - we look forward to inviting families into school to share their learning in a few weeks.
• Saturday 10 February 2024 Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy new year from Year 3!
• Thursday 8 February 2024 Exploring pitch Y1 have enjoyed exploring pitch and composing their own pitch pieces with boomwhackers.
• Wednesday 7 February 2024 Y4 Spring Concert! Today our Y4 children were really excited to perform their first concert to their families. The hall was packed! The children were AMAZING, we were so proud of how confident they were. They performed as instrumental groups as well as their own arrangements of pieces. Have a listen to these pieces. A massive well done to our fantastic Y4 pupils.
• Tuesday 23 January 2024 ENO Finish this..... Y5 are really excited to be working with the English National Opera this term to help finish their composition.
• Thursday 18 January 2024 Young Voices 2024 Our Young Voices choir had the most fantastic evening at the O2 arena, singing and dancing!
• Wednesday 17 January 2024 After ever after Thank you to Westfield! What a fantastic evening our children and families had at your opening night! Good luck for the rest of the run :)
• Thursday 14 December 2023 Y5 Calypso Christmas Today Y5 shared their Calypso Christmas performance with families. They have explored the history of the Bamboo Tamboo and played 3 layered polyrhythms - have a listen!
• Thursday 14 December 2023 Community Carols Thank you Y3! We loved your performance at the community carols this evening on Hinkler Green. It was so lovely to see so many of our families there to join in with us all.
• Wednesday 13 December 2023 Y5/6 Instrumentalists lunch time concert Well done to all our Y5 and Y6 instrumentalists on your first concert. The children absolutely loved listening to you perform as they had lunch and there were a lot dancing along with you!
• Wednesday 13 December 2023 Y3 Christingle A huge well done to our Y3 children who held their own Christingle Service today for their families. You spoke so clearly to tell the true meaning of Christmas and the singing was wonderful. It was the most magical moment when the lights went out and you lit your christingles with your families.
• Tuesday 12 December 2023 Little Voices Christmas Concert Thank you Little Voices. Your families loved your performance this evening. We were so impressed by how well you sang and singing in parts too!
• Tuesday 12 December 2023 Y2 Christmas recipe WOW! Y2 were incredible today. Acting, dancing and singing (with amazing solos) to tell us all the most important parts of christmas that they added in to make a Christmas Recipe.
• Thursday 7 December 2023 Wriggly Nativity We are SO proud of our EY children. They were fantastic today performing 'Wriggly Nativity' for their families. It was brilliant to see all our children on the stage dancing and singing so confidently.
• Wednesday 6 December 2023 Y1 Christmas recipe Our Y1 children were amazing today - singing, dancing and telling their recipe of all the things they need to make Christmas special.
• Tuesday 5 December 2023 Y6 Songwriting Y6 have been exploring songwriting and rapping. Through the history of rap and looping we became creative with writing our own lines. In small groups the children created their own songs, some changing lyrics to known songs and some using live loops to rap over. Three children took the song we had been learning in class 'Proud to be' and the theme of proud to create their own raps. Have a listen to their final version!
• Sunday 19 November 2023 EYFS enjoy Chimpanzees of Happy Town! Today our EYFS children visited Portsmouth Guilhall to enjoy a performance of 'The Chimpanzees of Happy Town'. They had the most amazing afternoon full of live music, acting, dancing and singing!
• Wednesday 15 November 2023 Y4 In2music with parents Today our Y4 families came into school to share our In2music session with us. Following time exploring each instrument children have chosen the instrument they would like to learn for the rest of the year. It was lots of fun working out which animal we thought the music was describing and using the inter-related dimensions to explain our choices. Then we composed our own animal sounds!
• Thursday 19 October 2023 I wish..... As part of Black History month we have been listening to different black musicians each day in class. In singing we learnt 'I wish I knew how it would feel to be free' by Nina Simone.
• Thursday 19 October 2023 Y5 in Space! Y5 have explored how different composers described space in their music. They found out how Delia Derbyshire composed the Dr Who theme using samples and then tried out all the different composers' ideas on garageband. Having planned their final compositions, this week they have used garageband to create their pieces.
• Thursday 19 October 2023 Y3 explore shape and colour with Kandinsky Y3 have been exploring synesthesia with lots of different pieces of music. Having discovered the Kandinsky painted some of his pictures after listening to Schoenberg's music we have tried to find the different sounds and shapes in these and play the pieces of music from them. Have a look at our graphic scores we created to play from.
• Thursday 19 October 2023 6D Music tech: EDM The thumbnail has been assigned to the news item, and for convenience also added to the body here:
• Thursday 19 October 2023 6B Music tech: EDM Y6 have been exploring EDM music with a focus on Daft Punk. They looked at the features of EDM, how music can be structured and how to compose their own. Check out these compositions!
• Wednesday 13 September 2023 Y4 music project! Y4 were very excited today to start their instrumental try outs. Having heard the performance last week they are beginning to explore for themselves how it feels to play each instrument before making their choice for the rest of Y4. They sound amazing already so we are looking forward to hearing their progress this year!
• Monday 4 September 2023 Music Mark Award 2023-24 We are delighted to have been awarded a Music Mark again this year to acknowledge our high-quality music education for ALL our pupils.
• Tuesday 4 July 2023 Singing at Oak Lodge Care Home Today Little Voices entertained residents at Oak Lodge with lots of different songs. The residents loved the concert and enjoyed joining in with the last songs, thank you for singing with us.
• Wednesday 28 June 2023 Instrumental Summer Concert Our amazing Y5 and Y6 musicians performed for their families today. There were fantastic solos, duets and group performances and a fabulous version of 'The Sky' played by the whole ensemble.
• Monday 17 April 2023 Listening Curriculum - The Blues This summer we are listening to a different piece of Blues music each week.
• Monday 17 April 2023 Our Learning timeline - Summer 1
• Thursday 6 April 2023 Y5 The Beatles Y5 have enjoyed exploring structure through The Beatles songs and developing their ukulele skills to play different pieces. They created their own bands to create versions of Yellow Submarine. Check out this band version!
• Monday 20 February 2023 Listening Curriculum - Religious Songs This half term we are listening to a range of religious songs.
• Monday 20 February 2023 Our Learning Timeline - Spring 2
• Monday 2 January 2023 Listening Curriculum - Musical History This half term we will be listening to a piece each week through each period of western classical music.
• Monday 2 January 2023 Our Learning Timeline - Spring 1
• Wednesday 16 November 2022 Time for change: rap workshop Helen visited us today to share the Southampton Schools RAP challenge. We learnt that RAP stands for Rhythm and Poetry and has 3 main parts: Rhythm, Rhyme and Meaning. We explored these three during our session and loved listening to 23 Skidoo 'Gotta be me' Y6 have some potential rap artists of the future - watch this space!
• Monday 7 November 2022 Our Listening Curriculum - Autumn 2 This half term we are listening to different marches, pieces specifically written for marching! It will be interesting to see what tempo each composer would like us to march at. Most will be at 120bpm which is a lot faster than the roman marches at 60bpm!
• Thursday 20 October 2022 Y1 Sound wheels Y1 have been stopping and starting sound and exploring dynamics with untuned percussion. Using sounds from the gruffalo, they have created their own compositions using soundwheels.
• Thursday 20 October 2022 Y5 in Space!!! Delia Derbyshire was amazing, she changed how sounds were recorded and used with her Dr Who theme. Using her question 'What if....' and thinking about how other composers have described space, Y5 have created their own compositions. Using garageband for the first time means they have learnt lots of new skills as well as exploring samples, clusters and arrays. Have a listen to some of these creative explorations all about space!
• Wednesday 19 October 2022 Watermelon Sugar! Our Ukulele Jam have had worked on new chords and reading rhythmic notation too. They performed Watermelon Sugar today for all the teachers, check out the G7 chord!!!
• Wednesday 19 October 2022 6C Garageband Following the performance with RKDIA, 6B have found out about Daft Punk and used garageband to compose EDM music with structure.
• Wednesday 19 October 2022 Y4 Exploring the instruments This half term Y4 have spent time exploring and trying out the Clarinet, the Violin and the Trumpet. After trying the instrument and re-visiting the following week the children have chosen the instrument they most enjoyed and felt drawn to.
• Wednesday 19 October 2022 6B Garageband Following the performance with RKDIA, 6B have found out about Daft Punk and used garageband to compose EDM music with structure.
• Tuesday 18 October 2022 Y3 painting with sound After exploring graphic notation and instrument sound colours, Y3 learnt about the relationship between Shoenberg and Kandinsky. Using a Kandinsky picture they liked, the children composed their own piece exploring the symbols from the image in sound.
• Monday 17 October 2022 30 purple birds! Year 3 have loved exploring '30 purple birds'! They added steady beats, used tuned percussion, rhythmic and sung ostinato parts. We had a LOT of fun!
• Wednesday 12 October 2022 Our amazing orchestra! Today all our instrumentalists in Y5 and Y6 (all 68!!) met together to play as an ensemble for the first time. There were some nerves and anticipation but lots of smiles and a LOT of musical playing together. We started work on a Half-Minute waltz, playing with 3 in a bar being the additional challenge to listening to each other and reading the notation with their friends.
• Monday 10 October 2022 No place like Thornhill..... Year 2 enjoyed finding all the sounds around Thornhill and creating their own soundscapes.
• Wednesday 21 September 2022 Thank you RKDIA! In music this week Year Six reflected on the performance last week. This email is a collection of ideas from all children. Individual responses can be found in jotter books.
• Thursday 15 September 2022 RKDIA @ Turner Sims Year Six had the most amazing afternoon enjoying a live performance by RKDIA at the Turner Sims Concert Hall in Southampton. For many pupils, this was their first live music enrichment outside of school as Covid prevented so many of our plans. Some children were nervous, most were excited and then we saw the concert hall. The lights set the mood ready for the performance. We were excited by the instrumental set up and keen to see how music tech was used to change and enhance the performance ready to magpie good ideas in our own compositions.
• Thursday 8 September 2022 Music Tech Children in Y5 and Y6 have started exploring sound palettes using garageband.
• Wednesday 7 September 2022 In2music project starts in Y4 Mr Hanchett, Mrs Porter, Mr Farrendon and Mrs Lloyd performed today for Y4. They performed as an ensemble and shared their clarinet, trumpet and violin with the children and parents. We are all very excited about trying out the instruments over the next few weeks to decide which one we would like to learn in Y4! Thank you to all our parents who joined us to find out more about the project.
• Tuesday 6 September 2022 Our Learning timeline Autumn 1 We have started this week with our new composers on our timeline ready to look at how all the composers link over the year.
• Tuesday 6 September 2022 Painting with sound Year 3 have been listening carefully to contrasting pieces of music and thinking about what colours they can hear and words that the music evokes. Come into the music room and all their fantastic artwork.
• Tuesday 6 September 2022 Come and find out more! Check out the reading area in the music room. There are lots of books about musicians, music history and stories with music in. Ask Mrs Lloyd if you would like to borrow them. Mr Moss has lots more in the library that you can read if you like!
• Monday 5 September 2022 Listening Curriculum - Autumn 1 This half term we are listening to lots of different woodwind instruments and listening carefully to their sound. There are pieces from different genres and from different times including Havana by the Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet and 'Adagio' from the Clarinet Concerto by Mozart.
• Thursday 1 September 2022 Music Mark School 2022-23 We are delighted to have been awarded a Music Mark again this year to acknowledge our high-quality music education for ALL our pupils.
• Thursday 21 July 2022 Y1 Emotions Year 1 have been exploring how their emotions feel and what they might sound like with the help of 'Big Emotions' by Laura Loft. They have been working so hard this half term and on Tuesday had hoped to be performing for their families at Itchen College along with lots and lots of other Y1 children.
• Wednesday 20 July 2022 Ukulele Jamming with Y3 Y3 have loved learning the Ukulele this term. We have been so impressed with their resilient attitudes as it's been tricky in places but they have learnt so much.... names of parts of the ukulele, string names and sounds, how to play together, how to play on the beat, how to pluck and strum strings, how to read chord charts and how to compose chord loops and strumming patterns.... WOW!
• Tuesday 19 July 2022 Y5 Blues Y5 did NOT have the blues this morning! They worked superbly as an ensemble to perform their own class blues. Well done to our amazing musicians who played chords (with three beaters - Mrs Lloyd is so pleased with you all!), sang their own blues lyrics and improvised..... What a brilliant end to our Blues learning.
• Monday 11 July 2022 Y2 Fanfares Y2 played their final fanfares today and were brilliant at using three lines to record their high, middle & low musical ideas.
• Wednesday 6 July 2022 Y6 Minimalism Having chosen their expanding ostinato rhythm Y6 choose a 4 note chord to use for composing their phrases. They challenged themselves to write on staff notation for their final composition of Y6. Have a look at these amazing results! Well done Y6 for managing to play them too - simply brilliant.
• Wednesday 29 June 2022 Y4 Summer Concert This morning our Y4 children played their final concert together to a packed hall of family and friends. They performed as a whole ensemble as well as playing individual group pieces. Hannah wowed us with her piano performance of an Argentine Tango as well.
• Wednesday 29 June 2022 Y5/6 Instrumentalist Concert What a morning!! We are so proud of all our children for performing their final pieces today and how far they have come with their learning. Well done to everyone. Thank you to our parents who joined us to share in the fantastic performances, we really appreciate your support at home.
• Friday 10 June 2022 Platinum Jubilee Celebrations
• Monday 6 June 2022 Our Learning Timeline Wow! Look at all the musicians and composers across time and around the world we've studied this year.
• Monday 6 June 2022 Music from Africa This half term we are listening to the rich variety of music from across Africa as our listening curriculum in class each morning.
• Wednesday 25 May 2022 Musical Patterns Y1 have been exploring musical patterns using all the inter-related dimensions. There has been lots of listening, responding and playing!
• Tuesday 24 May 2022 Secrets and Codes Y5 found out all about Grazyna Bacewicz this half term and how she hid messages in her music during WW2. We were sad to learn that female composers were still unusual at this time and there was a lot of discussion around this.
• Tuesday 17 May 2022 Y3 Ukulele Jam This half term Y3 were very excited to start learning the ukulele. They have worked really hard on the skills of plucking and strumming and learning chords. Despite this being really tricky everyone has been really resilient and can already play C major, F major and A minor. We're going to tackle tricky G7 next! Watch this space for our own jamming loops....
• Monday 16 May 2022 Minibeast Rhythms Y2 have been discovering all about Evelyn Glennie and reading rhythmic notation. They have really impressed us with how well they have read the rhythms and how hard they are trying to remember the technical terms 'crotchet' and 'quaver'. Well done Y2!
• Thursday 5 May 2022 Young Voices! What an amazing day! Today, 55 children from our Young Voices choir joined with the biggest choir in the world at the O2 Arena, London to sing in the 25th Anniversary concert, Young Voices 2022!!!
• Wednesday 27 April 2022 Singing for the Platinum Jubilee Today in school Nia Collins from Southampton Music Hub joined us in our singing assemblies. She taught us all a brand new song, written by a local composer, to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee. In Southampton there will be 'The Big Platinum Festival' on Sunday 5th June at Mayflower Park as part of the city celebrations.
• Wednesday 27 April 2022 Y4 reading Y4 started the term in their instrumental groups and were sounding fantastic! The trumpets were reading a piece in 6/8 from staff notation jumping between notes and getting faster and faster while the clarinets started with an arrangement in parts of hot cross buns before starting to sight-read their new piece. Mrs Porter was really proud of her violin group who read and played this whole piece! Well done.
• Monday 25 April 2022 Our Learning Timeline Summer 1
• Sunday 24 April 2022 Listening Curriculum This half term we will be listening to music from across musical history. We will start with a medieval piece of music until we hear a piece from more recent times. It will be great to hear how the music has changed.
• Thursday 7 April 2022 Y1 Space rhythms Y1 have been responding to music by listening to the tempo. They composed musical sentences using rhythm patterns from astronaut names and wrote these using musical blobs. Finally they explored silence with an astronaut asleep and trying to play their astronaut musical sentence at the same time as another group played the steady beat.
• Wednesday 6 April 2022 Y4 Arranging Scurvy Pirate Y4 enjoyed an exciting end to the half term learning about different types of folk songs. They warmed up as an ensemble with Dance Monkey before creating a final arrangement of scurvy pirate including singing and playing (as well as a lot of dancing and smiling!)
• Wednesday 6 April 2022 West African Djembe drumming Year 6 have been exploring syncopated rhythm layering using Djembe drums from West Africa. They explored some as a class group adding the Gankogui and trying call and response before composing some of their own pieces.
• Wednesday 6 April 2022 Y5 & 6 Instrument Concert Today we were wowed by our instrumentalists from Year 5 and Year 6. They were incredibly brave performing for the first time to an audience full of family and friends. There were lots of smiles and they sounded amazing. Thank you to all our families for joining us to celebrate the incredible progress the children have made.
• Tuesday 5 April 2022 Yellow Submarine Band Covers Y5 have loved finding out all about The Beatles this half term. We formed our own 'Fab Four' and created a cover of Yellow Submarine. Check out this band, they created their own intro, chorus and outro using drums, bass bars, ukuleles and their own voices!
• Tuesday 5 April 2022 Roman rhythm layers Year 3 used crotchets, quavers and rests to compose their roman rhythm sentences. As part of their final piece each group layered three rhythms together. Have a listen to each group playing their rhythms before they composed their final piece. Well done Jellyfish class!
• Tuesday 5 April 2022 Little Voices in Concert! Little Voices shared their singing with their families today and they were AMAZING! Lots of children led the song 'John Kanakanaka' singing solos, they sang in rounds and with ostinatos! Ask to hear our version of 'Blue Brother Jake'. We loved singing the body percussion version too :)
• Monday 4 April 2022 Y2 Heroes and Villains Y2 have had a very exciting half term. It all started with a visit to the MAST studios to experience 'Heroes and Villains' live performed by Southampton Young Concert Sinfonia, Y2 helped solve the clues in the music to find the hero.
• Thursday 17 March 2022 Y4 sea shanties Y4 are finding out all about music for movement. Starting with sea shanties and the 'scurvy pirate' we sang the melody with some ostinato harmony lines before we worked out how the rhythm was notated and started to compose our own on our instruments.
• Thursday 17 March 2022 Y3 Marching Year 3 have been exploring rhythm patterns using crotchets, quavers and rests with some help from John Philip Sousa, the marching King! They are using facts they know about the romans to compose a roman piece for marching with themselves... come back to check out our compositions!
• Thursday 17 March 2022 Amazing instrumentalists Since February some of our instrumentalists have been playing to welcome KS1 into singing assembly each week. It's been so exciting for the children to hear live music and we have been totally wowed by our children. Thank you so much to all those who have played so far - you were simply amazing!
• Thursday 10 March 2022 Y2 Recorder Club Today was very exciting in Y2. Following from their recorder learning in class we have started up a lunch time recorder club for those who would like to continue. Mrs Lloyd was very impressed by how well they played and how much they had remembered! Well done Year 2, Mrs Purdy and Miss Wiles.
• Tuesday 8 March 2022 Y2 Meet the Orchestra Y2 met the Orchestra today! They had a fantastic morning at the 'Heroes and Villains' Concert by Southampton Youth Concert Sinfonia. Back in school they will now be finding out how John Williams used the musical elements to compose themes for heroes and villains and composing their own.
• Monday 28 February 2022 Jazz listening focus This half term we are listening to the genre: jazz. Each week there will be a focus piece which will be played throughout the week. Each piece will feature a different instrument predominantly used in jazz. Jazz musicians are from a diverse background.
• Monday 21 February 2022 Our Learning TImeline
• Wednesday 16 February 2022 What an afternoon! This afternoon a group of Year 4 pupils and their families worked with musicians from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The RPO are composing the theme for Women's Euros and wanted our ideas! The children were fantastic and we can't wait to hear the piece full of our musical themes. Watch this space for the summer term when the RPO will be back with the piece for us to learn to play!
• Wednesday 16 February 2022 Y4 In2music Concert Thank you so much to all our families who joined us for our first In2music Concert this morning. We are so proud of the children and how well they performed. Thank you for all your support at home and encouragement.
• Monday 14 February 2022 Rockin' Recorders This half term Y2 have been learning to play the recorder. Check out how amazing they sound! Well done to fantastic Y2 and their amazing teachers.

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