Music
Welcome to the music page of our website!
At Tranmere Park we are immensely proud of our music provision.
We are Music Champion School which we were awarded by Artforms Leeds in recognition of the wide range of musical opportunities that we offer the children, both in classroom lessons and through our peripatetic offer and other opportunities.
As well as the singing, playing, performing, improvising, composing, listening and appraising that takes place in our classroom lessons, there are many more musical opportunities for our children to be involved in. Just one example of these is our entry into the Leeds Schools’ Singing Competition in which we were runners up the first time we entered. We won a voucher from Out if the Ark music which we spent on some lovely new singing resources. (You may have heard your children singing some of the French songs that we bought – they’re extremely catchy!)
We offer a wide range of peripatetic music lessons for children from Year 3 upwards which we try to run at lunchtimes to avoid the children having to miss classroom time. However, some instruments are so popular that we have to book the teachers for a bit longer!Peripatetic Music Lessons
Treblemakers ‘Wondering’
Treblemakers asked if they could sing ‘Wondering’ from High School Musical. I’m so pleased I said yes. They sing it so passionately. Have a listen to a snippet.
(For more information about Treblemakers, our singing group, scroll down.)
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Fun with notation in LKS2
There we’re quavers, crotchets, minims, semibreves and rests everywhere in LKS2. The children were clapping them, adding them and even making clock faces with them. Do you know what time it is when it’s a minim past two semibreves?
Ten past eight, obviously!
Graphic Notation and Composition in UKS2
Upper Key Stage 2 were introduced to Graphic Notation, which is representing music in a non-traditional way e.g. using lines, shapes and squiggles instead of standard notation (crotchets, quavers etc.) After evaluating the likes of John Cage’s ‘Water Walk’ they were given the challenge of writing a piece of music inspired by the painting ‘Dead Sea’ by Paul Nash, which was linked to their topic. They worked in groups and had some fantastic original ideas, including ‘swooshing’ a bean bag! Great work by all!
Stop and Go in EYFS
EYFS had a lovely time following a stop and go paddle which was red on one side and green on the other. They clapped and tapped and buzzed and sang, following the colours and stopping and starting. They took turns be the leader then continued their fun at their outdoor music wall.
Visit from Backchat Brass
Backchat Brass came and ran three sessions in school for us. They introduced us to their instruments and entertained us with performances, fun and games. They were brilliant and have inspired some children who are now interested in brass lessons. Just what we wanted!
Fun in EYFS
EYFS had fun adding sounds to the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They made a pop with claves when the caterpillar burst out of the egg and some lovely eating sounds with shakers, which got longer and longer as he ate more and more, along some fantastic body percussion eating sounds. They ended with a lovely celebratory chime bar sound when the caterpillar turned into a beautiful butterfly.
Fun in EYFS
Performance Assembly
Our performance assemblies are brilliant opportunities for our talented musicians to perform for school, parents and carers. We have even had a visit from Tamsyn Durrant from Art forms Leeds, who was particularly impressed. Thank you to Sia, Oliver, Daniel, and Dara for their fabulous piano solos. Thanks also to Ruby and her Mum for their lovely piano duet. Thanks to our singers Luca, Ben, Dougie, Louis and Rosie for singing so impressively and to Ella, Lily, Molly, Holly and Aoife for their entertaining dance routines.
Drum Workshop
Year 4 took part in a djembe drum workshop with the amazing Dom from Artforms Leeds. School was full of the sound of djembe beats!
For the past three years we have had annual visits from the amazing local band The Dunwells. They did songwriting workshops with KS2 children who performed the songs they had written for us at the end of the day. These were followed by our very own (short) Dunwells gigs! Everyone loved them! Here are some photos from their first visit which co-incided very nicely with our half term and Platinum Jubilee celebrations. We are hoping to work with The Dunwells again soon.
The Dunwells
We are the stars of our own school CD!
We rehearsed a selection of pop, call and response and French songs, to name but a few and then spent a day in the recording studio (the school hall) recording songs with Sam from ‘We are Heard’, who said that we were one of the best schools that he has worked with. We started with a whole school song, then each class was recorded, followed by Treblemakers (our singing group) and finally the staff.
Money made from the sales of the CD was spent on new music resources for school.
Treblemakers
Our singing group, Treblemakers meets once a week. They are a fantastic bunch of enthusiastic singes who rehearse on Thursday mornings. In the past, Treblemakers have performed at our Performance Assemblies, our Summer and Christmas fairs and at Guiseley Theatre, Yeadon Town Hall and Leeds Arena. They recorded ‘Let’s Go Fly a Kite’ for our school CD and we are are looking forward to some of the group performing at Leeds Arena this Summer. Here they are at rehearsals on World Book Day!
