Autumn Term 2025

Year 3 have been learning recorder and learning about famous composers and piece. Towards the beginning of the term we started listening to Hall of the Mountain King, now we are learning to play some of it on recorder.  Exploring lots of different rhythms and working on composing their own piece of music.  We have used different dynamics and started learning the Italian words that we use in music to show this written down. We are now moving on to learn new notes. We are going to use these and some percussion instruments to compose our own graphic scores.

Year 4 have continued to have their weekly string lessons with Miss Hayden.  They were able to perform to the Year 3’s and a hall full of parents to show how much they have already learned with their open strings and even their bow holds! Next we will be practicing using the bow more frequently and beginning to introduce fingers on strings.

Year 5 have begun to learn the ukulele.  First they learned how to hold the ukulele, learning the open string names by plucking and how to read the tabs on which the ukulele chords are written.  We have begun to play some simple strum patterns and learned the chords or A minor, F and C.  This has meant already we have been able to play some different songs. We are at the moment also busy preparing for our 2 concerts. Half of the year is going to sing at the Cathedral for a Christmas service and half is going to perform at St Peter's church with choir and/or orchestra.

Year 6 have been studying the evolution of music. We found out about the earliest tuned instrument which was a bone flute which is believed to be approximately 42,000 years old.  We had fun creating prehistoric music using the ocarinas which create a similar sound to the bone flute.  Now we are moving on to compose our own ground bass lines and then on to more modern music preparing us for looking at some Glenn Miller songs and World War II music next term.