Music

The music curriculum is based on an approach derived by Zoltan Kodaly who was a pioneering Hungarian music educationalist. 

The ethos suggests that feeling the pulse, rhythm and pitch through repeated singing and movement, will naturally progress into an understanding of the theory. This will also feed into the skills needed to learn to play an instrument.  The overarching curriculum is divided into four sections:

• Rhythm and Pulse
• Pitch
• Instrumental
• Singing games

These are repeated in the same order from Reception up to Year 6 and are half-termly topics.  These units are then interspersed with topic based projects to link in with the whole school curriculum.  For example, in Year 1, children create ‘alien’ music using music technology to manipulate sounds to link in with their Space topic.  In Year 6, children study James Bond film music and compose their own sequence of music to a clip from Tom and Jerry.  In Year 3 children learn about song-writing skills to compose their own song about friendship.

In addition to the core units, children learn to sing and perform music from a wide range of cultures and genres. For example jazz, folk, classical, samba, African songs, European folk songs, pop, soul and gospel genres are all explored through performances and practical sessions throughout the year.The fantastic HPACR school choir have just had a hugely successful performance at the Christmas concert and will be taking part in many more events next year.  The HPACR school band consisting of drummer, flute, recorders, piano and percussion have also just performed at concert and will continue to refine their fantastic sound next term.  As of next year, HPACR will host instrument lessons in flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone and piano within the school day.