The childrens' journey will start in Foundations@Thurcroft through the 'Expressive Arts and Design' strand of the EYFS curriculum. During this journey they have the opportunities to sing and create songs, engage in music making and dancing activities and perform for their peers and in the local community. The continuous provision within the foundation unit, is set up to allow daily access to musical instruments, costumes and movement resources such as ribbons and scarves. The children are encouraged to explore their ideas independently and to be imaginative. Pupils are encouraged to communicate their thoughts and feelings effectivity, talking about their likes and dislikes and expressing their opinions.

At Thurcroft, pupils are taught Music through individual lessons over the year. In Year 3 and 5, a specialist Music teacher from Rotherham Music Hub teaches Djembe Drumming (year 3) and Ukulele (Year 5). The ACET Long Term Planning ensures clear progression between year groups and allows our pupils to build on the skills and knowledge they have acquired.

Throughout Key Stage 2 pupils have the opportunity to play and perform as a solo or within an ensemble, listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory, improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music, use and understand staff and other musical notations, appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality live and recorded music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians and develop an understanding of the history of music.

Where possible Music is taught as part of class topics, supporting children to make links between Music and their learning in other subjects such as History, Geography and R.E.

In addition to our individual lessons, music is also supported through a weekly assembly in which a variety of aspects are covered. Each class and year group will have an opportunity to showcase their learning and perform for the school. Children also have the opportunity to practice some of the technical aspects of music such as following and creating rhythms, along with the constructive elements such as pitch and tempo, becoming a focus when singing, as well as many more. In order to support the classroom-based lessons and topics, each month children learn about and explore a different artist. The artist covered are from all over the world and from different periods of time.

Enrichment

During the Autumn term, children are offered the opportunity to attend a choir after school club, where they will have the opportunity to develop their singing skills. The children will then take part in the Young Voices concert at the local Arena. During the Spring and Summer terms, the choir club changes to Musical Theatre, where children will have the opportunity to work on not only their singing skills, but also their acting and dancing, helping them to become an all-round musical theatre performer. During the summer term, parents and carers are invited to attend the production.

We are thrilled to announce that Thurcroft Junior Academy has become a Music Mark School! It has been recognised by our local music service (Rotherham Music) the value we, as a school, place on Music ensuring children have access to a high-quality music education. 

Useful links:

BBC Bitesize KS1 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z7tnvcw BBC bitesize KS2 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zwxhfg8 http://www.kidsites.com/sites-edu/music.htm

Instruments

Although we do not currently provide individual music lessons within school, if your child is interested in learning an instrument, please explore the link below. On the Rotherham Music Hub page, you will find details about the instruments available to learn, pricing, instrument hire and much more. https://www.rotherhammusic.co.uk/learn

From speaking with children across the school, it is clear that many of them are interested in learning to play a musical instrument. Children across school will continue to access whole class tuition in instruments such as Ukulele and drums.  However, if this is something your child is interested in exploring further then Rotherham Music offers multiple options to support the learning of a musical instrument. Attached are their offers for the academic year 24/25. These lessons take place within school. Any questions please contact them using the information provided below.

Please find the downloadable form below.

Useful Documents