Music at St Joseph’s
At St Joseph’s, we strive to promote and encourage the enjoyment of music through a cross-curricular approach. Music takes place throughout school day during many lessons and activities, such as in Collective Worship, RE, Maths, PE, discrete Music lessons and much more! Our pupils at St Joseph’s love learning through music! Furthermore, the use of music (hymns, songs, instrument use and much more) in assemblies bring us all together as a school to worship God and celebrate our achievements.
We are also very fortunate at St Joseph’s to offer opportunities for private tuition through external music teachers and whole class lessons using a variety of instruments and musical styles. Lessons include singing, piano, flute, xylophones, brass instruments and a range of drumming musical styles. We thank ArtForms for providing a continually excellent service to our school!
“Music at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School helps the children grow in confidence, work as a team, solve problems and express themselves. Music should be fun and a release from the other more academic subjects in school. It inspires young minds, builds confidence and nurtures talents.” Mr Jennings, Music Teacher at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School.
Our Music Curriculum
At St Joseph’s, we encourage all children to develop their love music through learning a range of musical styles: including but not limited to, singing, a range of musical instruments, performing as a solo, small group or choir.
Year 5
Year 5 have been exploring body percussion and Bamboo Tamboo instruments. The children are enjoying themselves whilst learning a range of rhythms, beats and musical patterns. They have had the opportunity to create their own beats and rhythms and perform in small groups to the rest of the class.
Year 2
Year 2 have been learning about rhythm during their Music lessons through body percussion. They have been using ‘Call and Response’ where they have repeated a rhythm through clapping, tapping their knees, tapping the floor and stamping their feet. Pupils in Year 2 have also explored what other sounds they can make with just their body. They have then moved on to exploring the beats and rhythms in songs that they hear. This is a difficult skill to learn and sometimes the beat of the music can be hidden behind the tune/melody.
Year 2 have continued to develop the use of body percussion linking to their Jungle theme. They have used a range of musical skills to create jungle noises – such as the rain with the patting of their feet. They have then moved on to creating sounds orally to explore the sounds animals in the jungle might make. This has been developed to incorporating musical instruments to further develop and extend their noises and sounds from the jungle.
Extra-Curricular Opportunities
Young Voices Concert
A large group of Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 pupils attended the Young Voices Concert in Sheffield last week – and what a blast we had!! We had so much fun and loved every second! The children behaved fantastically and really did our school proud performing in such a large choir. There were over 5,000 children singing in the choir together! I know that the staff and children were also very happy with the surprise entrance of Tony Hadley – GOLD! Although, this is all the children knew Tony for! Mrs Doran and Mrs Frost even got to meet Tony Hadley! We had such fun and I know that all the parents and other family members that attended the concert had great fun too! Thank you to the children for making that experience so fun! Here are some pictures from the day and the night of the concert!
Harvest Liturgy Rehearsals
We have begun our Harvest Liturgy rehearsals today with Mr Jennings and the children raised the roof! We always love singing and worshiping God at the same time and the songs we have chosen, mixed with instruments and dances/actions really brought such an enjoyable and ‘feel good’ atmosphere! Thank you, as always, to Mr Jennings!
Harvest Festival Service at St James’ Church.
On Sunday 14th October, some of the children who take part in the school choir were invited to take part in the harvest service at St James’ church. We were invited to sing the song ‘Lean on Me’ alongside 3 other schools in Wetherby. The children were excellent at singing the song and representing our school. The children were asked to read a prayer for the church too and did so brilliantly. A big well done to the children who took part and represented St Joseph’s!
