Active Music

Welcome to Active Music.  We are a company brimming with primary music activities for you. One of our products is a series includes 168 tried and tested lesson plans for Key Stages 1 & 2 and over 500 DVD clips of children demonstrating the singing games and musical activities. Designed to develop children’s inner musicality, this scheme effortlessly brings the fun of music back to the classroom.

• 168 photocopiable lesson plans
• DVD clips demonstrating over 90% of the activities to be taught
• Musical notation provided for all songs within the lessons
• Extension ideas and activities included
• Differentiation within the lessons as children become more experienced
• Totally skill-based lesson plans
• Plans to cover 2 terms of teaching time for each year group
• Learn in easy-to-follow steps alongside the children

FREE 2-WEEK TRIAL!

Why not ask for a FREE 2-WEEK TRIAL?  We are willing to send you the FULL SET of Active Music to look at and try out – That’s 8 CDROM/DVD box sets.  We will even pay the postage, so you can see it easily and without any inconvenience.  All we ask is that you look after the packs and should you not require them that you can help us out with the return postage.  WOW!

To view the content and find more info on each of the 8 box sets, click HERE

To view some sample Key Stage 1 video clips, click HERE

To view some sample Key Stage 2 video clips, click HERE

Thinking of where to go next with your music in school?  Wanting fresh ideas? Thinking of purchasing a new music scheme?

Why would you choose ACTIVE MUSIC?

We provide well-sequenced tried and tested lesson plans with clear progression in musical skills within each year group and between the year groups.  For TOTAL CERTAINTY as to whether you are teaching as the lesson plans suggest you can view over 90% of ALL the games and musical activities within the lesson plans.  Should you lack confidence in actually delivering the lesson, the DVDs can help you.  By showing them on the interactive whiteboard, your children can see how the games go and what is expected of them. Some classes sing and play the games along with the DVDs.

ACTIVE MUSIC is very easy-to-follow and as a teacher, you can learn alongside the children.  It is TOTALLY SKILL-BASED, so the focus is on rhythm, pulse, singing in tune, using instruments and creating compositions etc, rather than linking music to topics such as Victorians or insects, for instance.  That is because we believe music is a valid and vital subject in itself, benefitting the children in thinking, sequencing and coordination skills among many, many others.

ACTIVE MUSIC contains so many ideas perfect for primary children and having more tried and tested ideas to develop children’s musicianship skills can only be a good thing, can’t it? Imagine having over 500 ideas to add to your repertoire, to keep forever and use throughout your career?

Don’t take our word for it – see what other teachers say?

‘The lessons are fantastic – I love them. I’ve been teaching straight from the plans and adapting as I go. They’ve given me lots of repertoire and have helped my confidence. The children love it – it’s the best music teaching I’ve ever done.’

Louise Tinker, South Bersted Primary School, Bognor Regis

‘Teachers who are not even specialists are saying to me ‘We can do this!‘ It’s simple, usable, effective and the children love it. It’s absolutely genuinely true. This is just what we need and we know where to go next because it’s in front of us – thank you so much…’

Rachel Kendal – Dept Head, Thomas-A-Becket First School, Worthing

Why not give ACTIVE MUSIC a try in your school? To register for the two-week free trial in January please email Sally at office@primarymusicspecialist.com.

Tea and a chat?

What could you do with an hour?  Have a cup of tea?  Chat to a colleague?  Catch up on other work? Spend quality time with your children at home? How long do you reckon it takes to write a whole music lesson from scratch?  An hour or so?  How long do you reckon it takes to sit down and work out an overview for medium and long term music lesson plans for your whole school?  Possibly 50 or 60 hours over a period of time? It’s on-going isn’t it.

How would you feel if that time was given back to you?  You could choose how to spend it.  In fact, forget the tea, you could go on a holiday!  Also, isn’t half the time of planning spent thinking about it? Coming up with ideas, resources, repertoire, ideas?  Working out how it all fits in? Making sure the music skills the children are learning are progressive? Making sure the activities used are fun and engaging for all the children in your class?

I know you wouldn’t compromise on quality and want to be the best music teacher there is – who wouldn’t?  But don’t you also think that life is about more than work?

Would you spend £1 to claim one hour of your working life back?  That’s all a music lesson plans costs… and would you spend 10p on a video clip to make sure that you understood the activity and were getting it right immediately, without having to read all the instructions?  That’s all it costs….

Think about it….Why not FIND OUT MORE? Why not have a FREE 2-WEEK TRIAL?

Our child-centred musical approach is derived from many years of teaching and research and is inspired by the teachings of Zoltan Kodaly.

Musical skills are taught progressively, moving from the simple to the complex in small, logical steps.

Children will be learning the musical elements of pulse, rhythm, and in-tune singing using solfa through a wide range of musical repertoire.

Repertoire includes chants, songs, rounds, canons, circle games, name games, rhythm games, action games, turn-taking games, puppet games and more.

Children progress to instrumental activities, arrangements, compositional work and notation as they gain in experience and confidence.

Singing game with xylophones

What does your role as a Music Coordinator involve?

As a Music Coordinator you are asked to do many things. As well as writing/finding a music scheme of work, delivering quality music lessons and organising all the Nativities, concerts and services etc, you are also expected to enable all the teachers in your school to teach quality music to their classes.

How do you support your non-specialists in teaching music?

Obviously you can write or find music lessons and pass them on but how do you know your less confident teachers can deliver them so that a unified and progessive approach is taken to music throughout your school? Wouldn’t it be great if each teacher had their own private tutor?  Would that ease some of your responsibility?

Active Music is like a private music tutor to every teacher

Active Music has been written to take the role of a private tutor so that each individual teacher can follow what to do and see the games and activities that they will be teaching on their computer before the lesson. They can even use the tracks as teaching tools.

How does this help you? 

It means the teachers in your school won’t keep coming to you to ask how a song goes or to explain a game or activity.  It also means that there will be a unified approach throughout your school – each year group can focus on the same aspect of music throughout each half term, so that all will be singing ‘from the same hymn sheet’ as it were. It means that you will know that quality musical activities are being taught in your school and you are clear what each teacher is covering from the Music National Curriculum.  It also means that your teachers are gaining musical training, by first learning, then teaching the musical activities in small, easy-to-digest steps. Therefore you are fulfilling your role very sucessfully.

Spend less time but be successful as a Music Coordinator!

I have written Active Music with exactly you in mind!  My aim was to research hundreds of fantastic skill-based musical activities, place them in a clear order to ensure progression and then deliver them to you in a consice, easy-to-follow format. The DVDs were then created – over a period of a few years – to ensure that all the activities could be seen to bring security and certainty to teachers lacking confidence.This is an ideal way to help your non-specialist teachers teach music.

Don’t take my word for it – please see our TESTIMONIALS page.

Like to try Active Music? Please learn more by visiting ‘ABOUT ACTIVE MUSIC’ and then contact us for a FREE 2-WEEK TRIAL!!  You can also always phone for more information and to chat about your Music Coordinator role.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Sally Wagter…