Shadowing a creative music-making day in a primary school August 1, 2010

On Tuesday 13 July I observed a day in the life of a music teacher at a primary school in Oxford.

Assembly

I was impressed to see how music was used as a crowd control. As soon as the CD was turned on it gained the pupils’ attention and they listened (fairly) quietly and it kept them occupied as the rest of the school filed in. The assembly was based on a dance that year 3 had created after looking at the The Arnolfini Portrait. Again, I was impressed how respectfully the other pupils watched.

Choir rehearsal

The auditioned choir had a second rehearsal of a pupil’s composition, which will be sung at a performance at the end of term. With the support of another teacher leading the sopranos, the teacher taught the tunes by played the melody on the piano and the pupils singing it back. Certain difficult passages were isolated and an octave interval was demonstrated by singing ‘Somewhere over the rainbow.’