Music
Promotes craftsmanship and intellectual curiosity while building confidence.
The benefits of learning Music speak for themselves, improving pupils’ academic and social ability and encouraging discipline and patience. Music also helps to cultivate creative and innovative learners.
The benefits of learning Music speak for themselves, improving pupils’ academic and social ability and encouraging discipline and patience. Music also helps to cultivate creative and innovative learners.
At Berkhamsted Pre-Prep, our main objective is to give each child an enjoyable musical experience from a very young age. We aim to provide a musical education that will nurture a lifetime appreciation of music as they continue through their school years and into adulthood.
We recognise music is fundamental to a child’s development and therefore we have dedicated music classes from the time children start at our Stepping Stones Nursery.
These lessons introduce and embed the musical elements through listening activities, music and movement, singing and playing instruments. The overall focus of these lessons is to encourage children to listen to music critically, perform music according to their ability and inclination and enable them to create their own music.
We aim to give our children a wide variety of opportunities to learn music in different ways and through a diverse mix of genres with regular opportunities to perform at school. After school clubs include African drumming, recorder lessons and Pre-Prep Sings Disney.
We believe the power of singing collectively can be extremely beneficial to our pupils and can be used as a tool to increase enjoyment and participation in a number of different subject areas. All children in Key Stage One participate in a weekly Singing Assembly, while each Year 2 class also takes part in a dedicated Choir rehearsal each week.
In addition to their curriculum lessons and choir practice, Year 2 children also receive violin lessons in smaller groups. The purpose of these lessons is to pique the children’s interest in playing an instrument and to lay the foundations of reading musical notation, but most importantly to deliver an understanding of the enjoyment of playing together and to celebrate in any achievements they will realise through persevering in practice.
When they move onto Berkhamsted Prep, they are then able to explore further musical instruments through the bespoke music project and individual lessons with peripatetic music teachers.
LEAP INTO ACTION
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As dreamy country schools go, the pre-prep is right up there, while the prep – a five minute drive away – is much bigger and so urban it could almost be London.
Staff share an ambitious vision, with high expectations for what all children can achieve and ensure that high standards of learning and care are delivered.
Inside, the emphasis on teaching and learning, as well as cross-curricular, is evident from the glass-covered noticeboards alone – among the largest and most comprehensive we’ve seen.
