Music

“Music education can help spark a child’s imagination or ignite a lifetime of passion. When you provide a child with new worlds to explore and challenges to tackle, the possibilities are endless.” Hilary Clinton

Music at Penn Wood School

At Penn Wood School, music is a powerful and unique form of communication that joins pupils together from different cultural and religious backgrounds and serves as an important vehicle in integrating those pupils who have very little spoken English. The breadth of music making activities in and out of the classroom helps to develop pupils’ self-confidence and creativity, to forge strong relationships and to develop teamwork.

At Penn Wood, music is loved and celebrated through assemblies and performances during the year. Music plays a central role in the developing the whole child and developing pupils’ self-confidence.

Throughout their school career, pupils develop and deepen their understanding of the key skills of listening, composing and performing music. Children can be heard singing songs in early years and playing a range of pitched and non-pitched instruments in key stage 1. As they journey through Key stage 2, pupils learn to play the recorder and violin. They develop their drumming techniques in year 5; learning to play djembe drums and performing samba rhythms. In year 6, they receive keyboard lessons. Pupils also have the opportunity to enhance their musical experience by joining a range of after school clubs which include a singing and drumming club.

Music Curriculum Intent Statement

Music Intent Statement

Music Intent, Implementation and Impact document

Music- Intent Implementation and Impact.pdf

Whole school Music curriculum

Music curriculum.pdf

Progression of skills in Music

Progression of skills in Music.pdf

Sounds of Intent Framework of Musical Development document

Sounds of intent framework.pdf

How to support your child with listening to music

Penn Wood's School Development Plan for Music

Penn Wood Music Development Plan 23-24.pdf

Pupil Learning

"At home, I thought about the ostinati patterns we had learnt in school and used beatboxing to create my own ostinato pattern. An ostinato pattern is a repeated rhythmic pattern." Huzaifa A, Willow class.

Year 6 compositions - Tudor music 1

Having identified key characteristics of Tudor music which included lively Humpty dumpty rhythms (compound), the pupils then went on to compose their own music fit for King Henry VIII's court

Year 6 compositions- Tudor music 2

Having identified key characteristics of Tudor music which included lively Humpty dumpty rhythms (compound), the pupils then went on to compose their own music fit for King Henry VIII's court

Year 6 Hero music

Spring 2024: Having listened to music that expresses emotions and music specifically composed for characterisation as part of the film music project, the children chose the musical features of concords, a fast pulse ( allegro), leaping melodies and staccato playing to capture the character of a hero in their compositions.

Year 6 Hero music

Year 2 pitch composition using Chrome Music Lab

Year 5 Djembe drumming compositions

SPRING 2024: Having learnt to play different cyclic rhythms from West Africa, the pupils had the opportunity to compose their own pieces of music. They experimented with layering different rhythms together as part of their piece of music.