At St John’s we believe that music is an essential part of a broad and balanced education for all children. Music develops the whole child by providing an enjoyable, engaging and creative experience that each child can access at some level.
We aim to create an environment where children enjoy exploring their own
creativity and develop an understanding, knowledge and appreciation of music
from different cultures and periods of history. We aspire to foster a love of
singing by making it part of every child’s school life through all the key stages.
We equip children with musical skills in performing, composing, actively listening,
reviewing and evaluating music. These are developed sequentially over modules
Children develop key social skills working in teams, learning to communicate, listen to each other, cooperate and take responsibility for their own contributions to work.
We aim to offer high quality live music experiences and performance opportunities through assemblies, school productions and concerts. We hope to inspire them to develop a life-long appreciation of music.
All year groups receive high quality discreet music lessons each week based on the Kodaly Method of teaching. This is an approach that is based on using the universal instrument of the voice and folk music to develop the skills of children from a young age. It encourages creativity and collaboration in groups, providing many opportunities for creative communication between children in class. There is a clear progression of skills across the year groups with progress tracked termly.
Singing assemblies regularly provide an opportunity for children to develop their singing and to deepen their spiritual engagement with the hymns and songs performed. In class, children have an opportunity from Year 1-6 to develop instrumental skills as they learn how to play the ukulele in modules across the year. There are regular opportunities for all our children to perform to audiences with Nativity Shows, Y6 Leavers shows, Harvest, Easter and Christmas services.
We have live music performances from students at the local Yehudi Menuhin School and visiting
instrumental teachers where children are able to hear a wide variety of instruments performing.
Our school choir perform regularly in local concerts joining with local adult choirs to offer combined
concerts, as well as performing annually at the O2 in London with Young Voices alongside 7500
Instrumental lessons are offered through Open 2 Music.
Our children enjoy performing and are confident musicians, exploring the world of sounds, developing their skills and talents and creating musical ideas of their own. We foster a love of singing with each other every week and children learn to be brave and experiment with their ideas. They have a developing knowledge of musical language and are able to use this to help them understand and engage with the rich musical heritage of their own culture and of other cultures around the world.