Music Education
Glee4Kidz supports and works with schools to meet and surpass the minimum requirements for music for children.
It is proven that music has the potential to make a significant contribution to children’s development: increasing confidence and self-esteem, developing leadership, team working, concentration and problem-solving skills, and developing identity and improving social cohesion for a child in and out of a school environment.
As well as singing and dancing within the Glee4Kidz sessions, learning to play piano and attaining qualifications at all levels of singing, dancing and piano are available to all children. This is taught directly by Lucie Barnes, co-founder of Glee4Kidz.
Glee4Kidz incorporates the national curriculum for Music, which aims to ensure all children:
- Listen to and perform music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions
- learn to sing and to use their voices, to create and compose music on their own and with others and to use technology appropriately and progress to the next level of musical experience
- learn to dance to various styles and to have the opportunity to improvise, perform dance and develop routines individually and with groups
- understand and explore how music works including pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations along with movement in time to music of various tempo and styles.
For children aged 5-7 (Key Stage 1), Glee4Kidz focuses on teaching the children how to:
- use their voices and bodies expressively and creatively by singing and dancing to songs from a variety of music genres
- listen and understand a range of live and recorded music
- experiment with and create sounds of voice and a variety of dance styles and movements
Glee4Kidz are very proud that some children aged 5-7 are far exceeding key stage aims, with achievements and performances that are fantastic!
For children aged 7-11 (Key Stage 2), they are taught to sing and dance with increasing confidence and control. They learn to develop an understanding of organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory.
Glee4Kidz children in this age group also learn to:
- perform in solo and ensembles, using their voices, dancing and/or playing piano with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression
- improvise with music for a range of purposes using the interrelated dimensions of music
- appreciate and understand a wide range of high-quality music drawn from different traditions and music genres.
Some of Glee4Kidz children in Key Stage 2 are already achieving QCF Credits and Grade Qualifications in Singing, Dancing and Music Theatre. One of the children has even achieved Grade 8 in Singing before leaving primary school and, now aged 13, is working on a Teaching Diploma!
All Glee4Kidz children get plenty of opportunity to build on their previous knowledge and skills through performing and developing their own songs and routines. This continues into Key Stage 3 which is focussed on children aged over 11.
Children aged over 11 (Key Stages 3 and 4) are taught to develop their vocal, dance and/or instrumental fluency, accuracy and expressiveness, and understand musical structures, styles, genres and traditions, identifying the expressive use of musical dimensions. They learn to use technologies appropriately and appreciate and understand a wide range of musical contexts and styles.
These children also learn to:
- play and perform confidently in a range of solo and ensemble contexts using their voice, dancing, playing instruments musically, fluently and with accuracy and expression
- improvise and compose; and extend and develop musical ideas by drawing on a range of musical structures, styles, genres and traditions
- identify and use the interrelated dimensions of music expressively and with increasing sophistication, including use of tonalities, different types of scales and other musical devices
- develop a deepening understanding of the music that they perform and to which they listen, and its history
There are an increasing number of children within Glee4Kidz who are in Key Stages 3 and are fondly known as Glee Seniors! Many of our Glee Seniors are already working and performing at advanced levels, often surpassing much of the syllabus and attaining National Qualifications including ABRSM for Singing, London College of Music for Music Theatre and LAMDA for Drama.
In addition many of the Glee Seniors become Mentors and Leaders to the younger children within Glee4Kidz passing on their learning, developing their own confidence and self-esteem, as well as linking into the obtaining of other qualifications, including Duke of Edinburgh Awards.
Looking to have Glee4Kidz in your school?