The purpose for teaching Music
Music is arguable the most fulfilling, fun and life-enriching subject of all of them. It can help us to relax and reflect, develop creative thinking, teach children about different cultures and help to build self-confidence. These are fundamental elements to enable children to grow and develop physically, mentally and socially. Learning to play an instrument has enormous value too, this can help develop maths and pattern-recognition skills, help to master memorisation and enable the children to learn how to work well in a team.
The teaching and learning of Music
Our music curriculum here at Eastfield Primary, gives children the opportunity to develop their voice, play a variety of instruments, use technology and have the opportunity to progress to the next level in music excellence. The children will listen to, perform, review and evaluate their own performances and that of others, whilst having the opportunity to learn about different genres of music and study great composers and historical musicians. Children will explore how music is created, produced and communicated by learning about pitch, dynamics, tempo, timbre, structure and appropriate notations.
The outcomes of our Music curriculum
By the time our children leave Eastfield Primary, we want them to have developed an enjoyment, appreciation and a curiosity for different music styles and cultures of music.
We want the children to have developed fundamental skills, such as rhythm, pitch, melody and notation.
Our hope is that they develop a love of music and in turn are able to feel free to express themselves, through playing instruments and composing their own music.
We hope to build confidence and creativity and encourage the children to work collaboratively in their performances and music discussions.
We want our children to leave Eastfield with fond memories that last a life-time and appreciate music in a meaningful way both now and in the future.
Continued Professional Development
Continued professional development (CPD) at Eastfield helps teachers to improve their skills, stay updated with new methods, and create engaging lessons. Through staff meetings, collaboration with others and helpful CPD on our Kapow scheme of learning, teachers gain confidence in using instruments and digital tools while having readily available resources and helpful guides on how to adapt the learning for some children and extend the learning for others. This enables our teachers to deliver high-quality music education that nurtures a children’s love of music.
Meet our Music Teachers
Mrs. Claire Grocock
Hi I am Mrs Grocock and I started learning the violin in school aged around 12 and I quickly realised this was something I really enjoyed. I had a break from it for a good while but picked it up again in my adult years and decided I wanted to teach others and took all my qualifications. I’ve been teaching violin at Eastfield for approx. 20 years, and there is always someone new who wants to learn. Eastfield is super supportive and is a great place to learn a musical instrument. I give lessons in violin, viola and cello, providing opportunities for exams, music medals and performances in school. In my spare time I teach privately, run two string orchestras and look after my 18 month old grandson.
Mr. Len Baker
Hi I am Mr Baker and I have been married for 43 years this June, with 4 children (one of whom we adopted with special needs from the Philippines in 2005), and 8 grandchildren.
Like all children when I first went to school I started on the recorder, but having a piano at home that my mother played, I started piano lessons aged 10. I managed to achieve my grade 8 in piano and theory when I was 21. When I was made redundant, I started to work at a musical instrument shop in Leicester. That lead me to start working as a Yamaha Music School teacher – going on to have my own YMS for about 3 years on London Road. I’ve been a peripatetic keyboard teacher for well over 30 years teaching in a number of schools in the Leicester area including Martin High School for 26 years. Martin High School was great to work at because music played a very big part in the school, with concerts etc being very popular – Eastfield reminds me very much of Martin High, hence why I am really excited to be here!
One very memorable teaching experience lasted just 2 weeks: on a charity trip to Uganda where I had the greatest pleasure to teach music in a school on the edge of a tea plantation – the school had no electricity or running water, but the kids loved it and were going around the playground singing the songs I taught them!
Mr. Darryl Golding
Hi, I have worked as an instrumental music teacher for 30 years as well as conducting graded music examinations for 25 years. Working closely with RSL awarding body, I was the syllabus consultant for the Rockschool guitar grades and the repertoire consultant for their diploma material. As well as running presentations and conferences, both locally and worldwide, I have run educational workshops that have included sound engineering and song writing. I have also enjoyed gigging extensively in bands, covering styles from Jazz to Rock and Classical to contemporary for the past three decades.
Music Leaders:
Mrs L Campana and Mrs L Knight