Year 2 Rationale

Throughout Year 2, children build upon their learning from year 1 and they learn and develop their skills in Singing, Listening, Composing, Musicianship and Performing. Lessons are planned and delivered by a specialist music teacher from the company ‘Junior Jam’. Each week is progressive, with children learning new knowledge and skills. Prior learning is revisited throughout lessons to ensure children embed new skills and knowledge.

In Autumn 1, children complete the unit ‘Song writing with glockenspiels, (Lite Level 2). Children begin to compose with purpose following briefs and guidance. In this advanced level, year 2 look at writing lyrics using rhyming words; these words are added to word boards and are used to help create lyrics in future tasks. Children create music and lyrics to non-musical stimuli such as pictures, poems and stories, as well as writing lyrics for well-known classical pieces.

In Autumn 2, children learn to play the Ukulele. They learn the correct names of the different parts of the instrument and the notation values of the strings. Children are shown how to correctly hold the instrument, the correct playing technique when plucking and strumming the strings, and how to hold down the strings correctly on the neck to change the pitch. Children are taught how to play different rhythms and songs both as a class and individually. Children learn to understand the difference between pitch and rhythm.

In Spring 1, children build upon their knowledge of music theory, showing progression from what they learnt last year. Teaching focuses on three main areas of music and music theory: Film Composition, Genre, and Improvisation and Creativity. Each week, children are tasked with analysing and responding to a film score taken from Disney’s Fantasia. Children analyse a specific genre of music relating to an alternative score to Fantasia, learning about instrumentation, the 11 working parts of popular instruments as well as being given the chance to improvise using a keyboard in a specific style.

In Spring 2, children learn to play the keyboard. Children will learn to improve their keyboard skills and build upon the knowledge gained in Lite Level 1 (last year). They learn how to keep in time and play music as a duet. Children will learn to understand rest notes and octaves.

In Summer 1, children practise the musical skill of singing. They use their knowledge from Lite Level 1 (taught last year) to combine their keywords into musical phrasing. Children perform vocal exercises to build on their pitch matching skills and their responses to changes in dynamics and tempo within a song. Children also learn more technical keywords such as crescendo and diminuendo and are taught how to perform these using visual cues. Visual cues are taught throughout the unit and are brought into performances by the leader to change tempo and overall dynamics.