We are musicians.

At Stewart Fleming, music is a regular lesson where we use instruments as well as our voices and it is taught in a variety of ways. Music is a subject which uses and improves skills that will be useful in many other subjects; for example, by learning to listen purposefully, working with other people and following directions.

“Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they should develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon.” National Curriculum (2014).

Singing Assembly

Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 take part in a weekly singing assembly which will improve both their musicality and their wellbeing. Songs are selected that the children enjoy singing to ensure that they participate fully. Children enjoy singing collectively and sharing familiar, affirmative music.

Music curriculum

Most of our music lessons will use the scheme, Sing Up! Lessons are taught either by our specialist music teacher or class teachers.

The key skills we regularly use in music are listening, performing and composing. Children are taught to actively listen and engage with music and to realise the importance of listening to themselves and others. For composition, children start by improvising with other music and develop into creating their own written compositions. Children are encouraged to share what they have done as part of their learning experience. As the children move through the school, they are also taught to use some formal notation – either to read or write their own music. Performance may be of their own composition or of a learnt piece of music. Children are regularly taught songs of different styles, which will also develop their performance or presentation skills.

We have a range of instruments that are used in music lessons. We have a large range of untuned and tuned percussion, including a class set of glockenspiels. We also have class sets of djembes, ukuleles, recorders and keyboards, which are all taught to develop performance skills with our specialist teacher.

We also spend time learning about the styles of music and a little bit about the history of them so that we can use that knowledge in our playing/singing.

Extracurricular Music lessons

We are lucky to have a range of peripatetic instrumental teachers, offering lessons in piano, strings, woodwind and drumming. Rocksteady is also offered to teach singing, keyboard, guitar and bass guitar in a less traditional method.

This year, Year 5 children will be taking part in Band On The Run to learn a new instrument with Bromley Youth Music Trust.