Music Round-Up

What a wonderful year of music-making we have had at Primrose Lane. 2022-2023 has been my busiest year of music at school; the covid restrictions have all gone and that has opened the doors to many, many exciting opportunities to our pupils. Some highlights:

• Since September the (huge) School Choir have sung at St Mary’s Church, in the Spring and Summer Concerts and the PTA Summer Fayre;
• Our most experienced instrumentalists have performed in an orchestra at Wetherby High School as part of an EPOS Inspirational Ensemble Day event;
• 8 of our pupils represented our school and performed as part of the Leeds Youth Music Celebration at Leeds First Direct Arena;
• We have had many music trips: Year 1 had an Into the Jungle morning of fun at Pudsey Civic Hall; Year 6 went to see a We Will Rock You at Boston Academy; Year 4 went to see a concert pianist workshop at The Carriageworks Theatre in the centre of Leeds and I attended the Leeds Music Conference;
• Many special times have been celebrated by song: the King’s Coronation Singing Assembly, Carols Around the Christmas Tree, the KS1 Nativity, the KS1 Easter singsong, Maypole celebrations and the end of year Year 6 production to name a few;
• Over a 120 pupils have performed in our concerts, live music sessions in Singing Assemblies – all of whom were amazing!
• Children in Year 2 and 3 have learned how to play the recorder (and we have started a new Recorder Consort who played so well in the Summer Concert!);
• Pupils in Year 4,5 & 6 have played the ukulele in music lessons and assemblies.
• A large number of our pupils have peripatetic lessons in school and they make impressive progress year on year. We will certainly miss the performances of our Year 6 instrumentalists in the school concerts next year.

Alongside these highlights are the day to day highlights for me as a Music teacher – listening to children sing a song they have composed themselves so confidently; hearing Living on a Prayer and thinking of our singing assemblies and seeing our children express themselves through music in art and movement. I have said it before but we are extremely blessed to have such enthusiastic, talented and joyous music-makers at our school. Thank you to our families and children for your support in making this year such a special year of music making. I look forward to seeing what next year brings!

Helen Crowther

EPOS ENSEMBLE INSPIRATION DAY @ WETHERBY HIGH SCHOOL

This week, a group of musicians from Year 5 join with many other children from the area to take part in an EPOS Ensemble Inspiration Day at Wetherby High School. Throughout the day, pupils learned and rehearsed several pieces then came together as an orchestra to perform. The day ended with a concert for parents and carers to attend. Days like these are excellent but they are intense for the pupils! Sustained full-on concentration and performance takes stamina. I have seen videos of the performances and our children were all incredible!

Angus: I loved playing music for the whole day and loved making music with Adam who is an instrument player from an orchestra. I also liked playing in from of the parents.

Evie W: I found the music day really fun and I enjoyed playing The Blue Danube (but one of the pieces was really hard!). When we composed our own, that was really fun.

Emily: I really enjoyed making music with Adam. We didn’t name our composition but I want it to be called ‘Jungle Beat’.

Daisie: When we went to Wetherby High I found it really fun and we made friends. It was great, my all time favourite was The Blue Danube. I hope to go again next year!

Chloe: I really enjoyed Wetherby High School. We made new friends and I really liked playing the pieces. I would really like to go next year and learn more pieces!

Evie C : I really enjoyed making up music with this person called Adam who played the bassoon, between ourselves, we called it. ‘Jungle Beat’.

Year 3 Teacher

Music & Computing Lead