Music at Riverside
The National Curriculum states ‘children should be taught to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control’. At Riverside, we employ a number of approaches to insure that our curriculum delivers just that, whilst also allowing the children an opportunity to sing and compose across countless genres, as well as experience the joy of learning to play an instrument.
Whole class instrument
In Years 3 and 4, we’ve decided to invest in our amazing children by hiring a professional music teacher to deliver whole class sessions to Years 3 and 4 learning an instrument.
Walk around the school on a Tuesday afternoon, and you’ll likely hear trumpets, trombones, french horns, recorders…the whole lot! All been gustily blown by children with puffed out cheeks!
We choose to follow this approach as not all families can afford private lessons, so offering this ourselves for two years helps achieve a parity amongst those children who already have the joy of music tuition, and those who do not.
Also, there’s a great deal of theory that learning to play an instrument can aide a child’s cognitive development…so in our minds, it’s a win-win!
Whole class singing (Charanga!)
We love to sing at Riverside!
Our marvellous Miss Rooney regularly runs our singing assemblies on a Wednesday morning; the amazing Ms Browne has her choir club on Thursdays after school (which if you’d like to join, please talk to the office!).
Which just leaves the classroom…
We love Charanga, a fantastic website that allows the teachers to deliver singing and whole school instrument playing to the children, covering genres from folk all the way through to hip-hop.
It insures that children are experiencing a breadth of exposure as well as a depth, and that each year builds on the last.
Useful documents:
Our Music Gallery
“Playing a proper instrument is great fun!”
— Year 3 child