Foundations for Music in EYFS

In Nursery and Reception, our pupils listen to a range of music and respond with their thoughts and feeling about what they have heard.  Nursery rhymes are fundamental to the settling in period in Nursery. The children begin to link dance and performance arts with music to express their feelings and responses.  For example, the theme of Under the Sea is used in Reception and children can think about how they would move in water.

The children also learn how to understand songs through collective and individual singing of entire familiar songs following different melodies.  Pitch is introduced and through their singing children can follow how the melody moves up and down. 

The children are introduced to instruments which allow them to express themselves and improvise to create their own music developing an understanding of pulse and rhythm.  Phonics teaching incorporates a lot of rhythm and children use a range of body percussion to follow the beat.

This work in the Early Years prepares our pupils for musical learning in KS1 by teaching them to use their voices expressively, play a range of tuned and untuned instruments, sustain their ability to listen and respond to high quality live and recorded music.  There are matching activities where children listen closely to sounds and match them to instruments.  Children are also able to confidently experiment with sounds creating and developing their own music.