The school uses the Essex Charanga curriculum to teach music in school.  Currently the majority of classes are taught by a specialist music teacher and our instruments of choice are recorders and glockenspiels.

In order to teach music notation, children are first introduced to a graphic score. Shapes represent different sounds or length of notes and children are encouraged to read the score together, producing the correct sounds at the correct time! From here, we move onto standard notation - introducing crotchets, quavers, minims and rests. Children are taught that the shape of the note represents its length - they use instruments to read these, playing the same note for the correct length. Alongside this, we teach the children that the line that the note sits on the stave shows which note should be played. We introduce these notes one at a time - starting with a B - as this is one of the easiest to play on the recorder.