Music
The Magic of Music at Alderton Junior School
Music at Alderton plays a large part in school life, both within and outside the curriculum.
All of our pupils are taught by a music specialist teacher. All classes have a weekly music lesson of about forty minutes. All our pupils also take part in a weekly hymn practise. Mr Hopwood, our music teacher, plans the lessons so that the children sing and play a range of instruments to help them learn about the magic of music and what is can offer them.
Once a week the school gathers together for twenty minutes for our hymn practice where the children sing a range of songs linked to festivals, celebrations and the seasons.
For children who have a particular musical talent or who simply enjoy music and want to do more we offer as much as we can.
Alderton has a well established school choir that sings in a variety of settings. It leads our major concerts, sings in school assemblies and the District Music Festival. The children also have opportunities to sing in local churches and to entertain out in the locality such as care homes. We are always on the lookout for opportunities to extend the children such as at the O2 Festival where we were singing with 6000 other children from around the country.
Mr Hopwood also runs a small singing ensemble that performs a range of styles from music theatre to pop. The songs can be challenging but the children love it.
The school has a wide range of percussion and untuned instruments that are used mainly in the class lessons (no waiting your turn, there are plenty of instruments to go round the class). We are also building a collection of more specialist instruments, aimed at those children who want to explore this aspect of music.
Mr Hopwood has developed a Rhythm Group, the basis of which is our set of Samba drums. The Group, made up of children from Year 4 to Year 6 meet once a week to learn the routines for their next performance.
Just for the Year 3's, Mr Hopwood offers Recorders which the children thoroughly enjoy.
Individual Instrumental Lessons - we have two other music teachers who work for the Essex Music Services. These 15 minute lessons have to be paid for but there is a voucher system to help with the cost. These teachers offer lessons in piano, flute and guitar.
We use the school assembly to encourage participation in music. When possible we have live music playing as the children come in and out of the hall. This will be Mr Hopwood on the piano or one of our pupils playing their own instrument. We also have Music Monitors who are responsible for choosing the music when there is no live musician.
This provision enables our pupils to experience music in many different forms - singing, playing and listening.