World Music Day

As part of our World Music Week celebrations, pupils across the school immersed themselves in a range of musical experiences, celebrating music from different cultures and exploring how music can express feelings, ideas and creativity.

 

Olympus

Children in Olympus thoroughly enjoyed taking part in a range of musical activities throughout the week. They particularly loved singing together and participating in Mrs Olive's percussion workshop, where they explored a variety of percussion instruments. Inspired by the workshop, pupils then designed and made their own percussion instruments in class, demonstrating creativity and an understanding of how sound is produced.

Pupil Voice:

• "I liked making my own instrument because I could choose the sounds it made."  Tommy
• "Mrs Olive showed us lots of different percussion instruments and it was fun playing them together."  Sienna
• "Singing with everyone made me feel happy and confident." - Amel

KS1 – Ben Nevis

During World Music Week, Ben Nevis explored the language of music. Using the musical terminology they have developed throughout the year, pupils created informative posters to teach others across the school how to "speak like a musician". Their impressive use of vocabulary demonstrated both excellent subject knowledge and enthusiasm for music.

Pupil Voice:

• "I didn't realise how many musical words I already knew!" Lyon
• "Making posters helped me remember what all the musical terms mean." Rochelle
• "I liked teaching other children new music vocabulary." Thomas

KS1 – Ben Hope

Ben Hope celebrated World Music Week by immersing themselves in the rich tradition of sea shanties. Children sang along to a variety of songs and learned about the history behind these traditional sailors' songs. As their topic this term is Coastline, this provided a wonderful opportunity to make meaningful cross-curricular links and deepen pupils' understanding of life at sea. Inspired by the music, the children also painted beautiful wave pictures whilst singing, enjoying both the artistic and musical elements of the experience.

Pupil Voice:

• "I enjoyed learning why sailors sang sea shanties when they were working." Ashirai
• "Singing while we painted made the activity really relaxing and fun." Edwin
• "My favourite part was singing all together because it made me feel like we were on a ship!" Sienna

LKS2

KS2 celebrated World Music Week by creating an 'Emotions Playlist'. Pupils selected songs and discussed which emotions or moods they best represented, developing their understanding of how music can communicate feelings. The children particularly enjoyed sharing and listening to one another's choices, with the class's silly playlist proving especially popular during energetic dance parties.

Pupil Voice:

• "Music can make you feel lots of different emotions and everyone chose different songs."
• "The silly playlist was my favourite because we all danced and laughed together."
• "I liked hearing songs that other people enjoy because it introduced me to new music."

UKS2

UKS2 marked World Music Day by listening to a range of traditional songs from around the world and discussing what they noticed about each piece. Music from Ukraine stood out as a particular favourite, with pupils commenting on how it didn't sound like what they expected. The class also explored rhythm by recreating percussion-style patterns using only their bodies, using claps, taps and simple vocal sounds to mirror the beats found in the music they had heard.

Pupil Voice:

Charlie - I enjoyed listening to the different music from around the world. Madagascar was my favourite. 

Madison - It was fun to try to make the noises using our bodies. It was hard to copy it exactly but we did a good job.