Music | Simonside Primary School

At Simonside Primary School, it is our intent to inspire creativity and promote a lifelong love for music. Our objective is to ignite a passion for music by exposing our children to diverse musical experiences and moulding musicians who can use their voices and instruments creatively with increasing accuracy and fluency. Music plays an important role in our mental and emotional wellbeing as well as providing a platform to express oneself freely. We are committed to ensuring that our children receive a high-quality music education, thus developing a critical engagement with music which allows them to appraise, compose, perform and critique confidently.

We aim to develop a strong understanding of music across history, styles and traditions as well as providing opportunities to develop musical understanding and emphasise the benefits of music in other subjects.

Simonside’s Sound of Music- Music in Action!

Everyone at Simonside is a musician… so let’s see a snippet of what each class have been getting up to!

Early Years Foundation Stage

Reception

Practicing a new song!

Experimenting with sound using instruments!

Key Stage One

Year 1

Playing along with a simple tune!

Moving to sounds from ‘The Aviary’ section in Saint Saens’ Carnival of the Animals!

Exploring tempo in the ‘Hens and Cockrels’ section of Carnival of the Animals!

Creating symbols to represent musical notes!

Year 1/2

Copying a beat!

Creating moves to a sound!

Creating sound effects to match the environment!

Year 2

Key Stage Two

Year 3

Learning ‘We Will Rock You: Stone Age Version!’

Composing 4 bar pieces using dot notation!

Performing dot notation compositions using un-tuned percussion!

As part of Black History Week, researching the musician and producer Nile Rogers, individually creating loops based on a specific genre and finally joining with other peers to create a mash up of multi-genre music!

Changing the order of the chime bars and then replacing notes in order of pitch!

Practicing the ‘burger’ hold when playing the ocarina!

Learning the C major scale and developing knowledge of pitch!

Performing variations of the pentatonic scale!

Representing the ostinato and melody of Deliah Derbyshire’s ‘Doctor Who’ theme!

Reading staff notation and performing the melody to ‘Doctor Who’!

Year 4

Rehearsing and performing ‘Hot Cross Buns’ on the recorder!

Arranging notation cards to create sequences of phrases!

Composing music to create a specific mood!

Year 5

Labelling parts of a ukulele!

Playing a chord accompaniment to John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Field’ for Remembrance Day!

Year 6

Learning the chords C, F and G major and using these to perform The Beatles’ ‘Three Little Birds’!

Creating a virtual band on Garage Band!

Creating a string orchestra on Garage Band!

Using sound technology to compose songs to reflect a certain mood as part of Mental Health Week!

Music Club

Every Tuesday after school, children from across Key Stage One and Key Stage Two join together as part of our music club! As part of our sessions, we aim to develop our knowledge of music theory, composition skills, confidence and overall enjoyment of music! We explore music in a variety of ways including games and fun activities. Our favourite game at the moment is ‘Swampee’ to explore pitch!

Composing a soundscape based on Bonfire Night using graphic notation!

Singing Squad

Our school choir (Singing Squad) is open to all children in Key Stage Two and meet every Monday lunch time. We were very busy during the festive period and spread lots of Christmas cheer to the local community at the Scotch Estate and at Tesco’s. We were all so proud of how they represented our school and how amazing they all performed. When not preparing for a performance, the children come to choir and just simply… sing! In the Summer term, we performed a mega mix of songs from 1953- 2023 to celebrate Simonside’s 70th birthday celebrations!

We already have our first event booked in as we are going to perform at South Tyneside’s Christmas Carol Concert alongside other schools in the area (never too early to mention Christmas!)

Small Group Tuition

Funded by us, our children have the opportunity to learn an instrument outside of lesson time by a specialist peripatetic teacher in our Local Authority. Currently, we have small groups of children learning the guitar and keyboard. We are looking forward to hearing what they have learnt this term. Simonside have some very talented musicians!

Rocksteady

Some of our children take part in the Rocksteady Programme. This opportunity is open to all of our children and is funded by parents/guardians. Each session is led by an extensively trained musician. The children can choose to learn the electric guitar, keyboard, drums or vocals and learn songs that interest them! At the end of each term, our whole school comes together to hear our amazing bands perform. We definitely have some rockstars in the making!

Primary Robins

We are very lucky to have the opportunity to work with Grange Park Opera as part of the Primary Robins Music Project. As part of our music lessons, every class will focus on a singing unit, which is led by a specialist operatic singer, for a term each year. This aims to build confidence and musical learning, as well as enhancing learning in other areas. Whilst our children will explore modern and periodic music in other areas of our music curriculum, Primary Robins focuses on traditional songs. Song books are used to expose children to the pattern of music notation, building on theory they have learnt previously and supporting them in future music lessons.