Music
“Without music, life would be a mistake.” Friedrich Nietzsche
Our Vision for Music at Primrose Lane
Our music curriculum aims to instil a lifelong love of music in our students and nurture their musical talents. By encouraging creativity through composition and improvisation, we empower children to express themselves artistically and develop their unique musical voices. We set high expectations for our students, supporting them to become confident and accomplished musicians who can perform with skill and passion. By providing a comprehensive music education that fosters a love of music and encourages students to perform and create, we use music to contribute to pupils' wider personal development. Our intent is to provide students with a well-rounded musical experience that not only develops their technical skills but also nurtures their creativity, confidence, and self-expression.
At Primrose Lane Primary School, we have developed a Self-Developed music curriculum that reflects our strong music ethos and commitment to providing a wide range of opportunities for our students to engage with music. Our curriculum is designed to be broad, balanced and progressive, ensuring that all children are exposed to a variety of tuned and untuned instruments, with singing at the heart of our musical education. We believe in providing numerous opportunities for our students to perform in front of live audiences, fostering a love of music, and using music as a means of self-expression.
Weekly Music Round-Up
Every week, all pupils receive at least 30 min music lesson every week. In addition to that, here is what is on offer to our pupils:
Monday: Recorder Consort
Singing a song in Whole School Assembly
Tuesday: Woodwind Peripatetic Lessons
Singing Assembly & Live Music
Wednesday:
Thursday: Djembe Peripatetic Lessons
School Choir
Friday: Guitar Peripatetic Lessons
Singing Celebration Songs in Celebration Assembly
This Week in Music
Our (huge) School Choir is made up of children in KS2 (Years 3,4,5 & 6). This incredible group of singers love learning new songs; the feeling of singing in such a large group is indescribable! Everyone knows singing is good for the soul. Leading Primrose Lane School Choir is one of my very favourite parts of my job!
This is a song we learned to celebrate Black History Month - it is called Maliswe. This South African song is written in a variety of African languages. It is linked to the Anti-apartheid movement and the song expresses a longing for home. Listen out for beautiful 3-part harmonies.
Enjoy...
We are so lucky at Primrose Lane that we are treated to a variety of Live Music every Tuesday afternoon! This week was no exception: Joe played his electric guitar, Bertie played his saxophone, Mia, Lucy, Bethany and India played their flutes, Zoe and Jasmine played their oboes and Rosie and Mollie played a recorder duet that Rosie composed herself! What a treat to start our Singing Assembly and what an inspiration to our pupils who may choose to take up one of these instruments. Thanks to Mrs Hedington for accompanying her performers on our piano, too.
This Week in Recorder Club
Recorder Club are learning Into the Light. Rosie and Esme from Y6 have been acting as coaches with new notes. We have no letters or numbers to help, we are all reading the musical notation - and getting more and more confident each week. The new skill this week is playing F and counting dotted minims (which last 3 beats)
Time to Perform!
Year 4 and 5 have been working on learning new melodies, and playing the glockenspiel. The children were keen to be recorded and were so proud of their performances.
Year 4's piece is called Hoedown (we are using our best American accents) and Year 5's piece is a scary one called Ghost Parade. Listen out for ghosts, evil laughs (courtesy of Oliver!) and some dramatic shrieks! We had so much fun making music this week.
Recorder Club have been working on Touch the Sky - it has syncopated rhythms, crotchets, minims and crotchet rests and uses repeat signs. Our sight reading is getting more and more confident! Enjoy our piece...
Composition Workshop 
Year 6 absolutely loved reading The Final Year by Matt Goodfellow; it inspired us to compose this piece. We worked together to create a plan: what feelings and emotions are reflected in the book at key moments of the plot?
When we had our list of 9 key milestones in the book, we thought carefully about the style of music that would suit it. For example, the moments in the book where Nate loses control and The Beast takes over needed to be powerful, loud and almost overwhelming.
Here are the sections we describe through our music making:
- Nerves about leaving Y5
- Happy Y6 started well
- The Beast rises
- Utter sadness - Dylan’s diagnosis
- The BEAST
- JOY
- Calm – residential/countryside
- Happy Dylan is well and friendships are secure
- Every little thing…
We had to end with a excerpt of the melody from Three Little Birds by Bob Marley. Mr Joshua, the teacher in the book, sings this several times during the book so it felt like the perfect way to conclude our composition.
Team 6 work together beautifully and this mix of tuned and untuned instruments match so perfectly to create this epic composition - The Final Year. Enjoy...
UPDATE!
Sent: 09 October 2024 13:00
To: Helen Crowther <crowtherh@primroselane.leeds.sch.uk>
Subject: Re: Composition
Cheers
Year 6 have been working on a final performance of You've Got a Friend. The glockenspiel part has tricky syncopated rhythms which the children mastered quickly. The second verse is sung by a small ensemble which sounds wonderful. Enjoy the video!
This week is the first Choir session after our 2 'try it and see' weeks. So now we have our new Primrose Lane School Choir - exciting! Here are the slides we used today. We are celebrating Black History Month by learning I Wish I knew by Nina Simone and a new song called Maliswe which originates from South African countries.
This is what we are working on in Recorder Club this week. Can you use this link to practise?
Music at Primrose Lane
- Every class from Nursery to Year 2 are being taught music every week by their class teacher. In KS2 (Y3-Y6) children are taught by Mrs Crowther, a music specialist;
- Every Tuesday we have a whole school Singing Assembly;
- To start the Singing Assemblies, we have a ‘Live Music’ slot where instrumentalists have an opportunity to perform. This inspires and entertains the other children and is a wonderful opportunity to play a piece that is ready. We have already heard Harvey in Y3 perform ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ on his guitar - needless to say, the crowd went wild! Please encourage your child to chat to Mrs Crowther or their class teacher if they want to perform in a relaxed environment (with a very forgiving audience) on a Tuesday;
- KS2 Choir meets every week on Thursdays. There are no auditions, all are welcome. We will be working on modern ‘pop’ songs as well as more traditional choral music for children, aiming to develop 2 and 3 part singing and confidence. Please have a think at home about whether or not your child(ren) would like to join – we’ll have lots of fun!
- Recorder Consort meet on Monday Lunchtimes at 12:45;
- Practise – if your child learns an instrument (in or out of school), they are allowed to bring in their instruments to practise together at break or lunchtime in the KS2 area. Mrs Crowther is also around so if anyone needs help tuning instruments for advice on musical issues e.g tricky rhythms etc. or just someone to perform to, she is there;
- Our peripatetic music lessons have started already! We welcome back Mrs Hedington, who is teaching flute, saxophone, clarinet and oboe on Wednesdays. A warm welcome to Mr Jarman who is new to school; he will be teaching guitar on Fridays and Mr Nunn who teaches percussion on Thursdays. I can’t wait to hear the instrumentalists perform in our concerts and Live Music sessions throughout the year. If you have any questions about woodwind or percussion lessons, please contact Mrs Glew in the school office for more information;
- Whole class music lessons are part of the new music curriculum. In Year 2 and Year 3, pupils receive whole class recorder lessons, in Year 4 pupils have whole class ukulele lessons and in Years 5 and 6, pupils have a half term on recorder and on ukulele to keep those skills sharp. Then, pupils are able to move on to woodwind tuition and guitar tuition if they please to develop further.
- As we progress through our new long term plan for music, we will continue with half a term of recorder teaching and half a term of ukulele teaching in Years 5 and 5 and 6 so that when pupils leave us, they will be able to read music and be quite confident playing 2 instruments. Hopefully they will have fostered a life-long love of music!
- We will hold a KS2 Music Concert at the end of each term. These concerts are for pupils who have instrumental lessons in our out of school and the school choir. If your child’s piece needs a piano accompaniment, please give it to Mrs Crowther in time for her to practise with your child;
- There will, of course, be ‘usual’ key events throughout the year such as the Nativity, Carol Service and Summer Production, details of which will be provided nearer the time;
- There is also lots of ‘incidental’ singing going on in classes to aid learning e.g. singing times tables songs.
If you have any questions about peripatetic music lessons, the contact is Mrs Glew in the office, any other music questions, please ask Mrs Crowther - feel free to email on crowtherh@primroselane.leeds.sch.uk . We look forward to a year of wonderful music-making and performances!
Artforms is the name of our wonderful Music Hub. If you want to know more about music-making in our area or what is on offer city-wide, click on the link and check out their website or contact them direct with any queries:
E: educ.artforms@leeds.gov.uk
Tel: 0113 3782850
ArtForms Music
Pudsey Civic Hall
Dawson’s Corner
Pudsey
LS28 5TA
Here is our report from the Champion School Review. They are due to assess us again this academic year, and we look forward to sharing what we have been up to!
