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Important update from TheSchoolRun

For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.

What this means for subscribers:

  • Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
  • In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
  • As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.

A few changes to be aware of:

  • The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
  • The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.

*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.

Foundation Stage music: what does your child learn?

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Music helps your child’s learning in lots of school subjects. Here’s what they will be taught in lessons and how you can develop their love of music at home.

Music features quite a lot in lessons for children during Nursery and Reception years. There are plenty of opportunities to sing, explore sounds and dance and play to music. It’s often used as a method for learning about other things in the national curriculum, such as science, numbers and words, too.

Your child's teacher will also help them to understand how sounds can be changed; sing simple songs from memory; recognise repeated sounds and sound patterns; and match movement to music. Children might also have the opportunity to compose using a variety of musical instruments.

 

Foundation Stage music lesson examples

The kinds of activities Foundation Stage children might be introduced to in music:

  • In Nursery, children interpret ‘sad' and ‘happy' music using pictures. They also practise moving their bodies to describe music that sounds very spooky, scary or changes in pitch.
  • In Reception, children listen to a CD playing music which depicts jungle animals. Children must pick an animal they think the music sounds like and use movement to represent that animal.

Support your child's music learning at home

  • Sing songs that invite your child to perform an action, such as a clap, stamp or jump, to help your child develop rhythm. Songs with repetition are particularly good.
  • Make your own homemade instruments - it's fun, cheap and you can use any household object that makes a sound. Fill an empty screw top jar with uncooked beans or rice to make shakers. Make sure the lid is tightly secured before use! Or try empty cartons, pots and pans to make drums that can be hit with a wooden spoon. You can even create a triangle by suspending a metal object such as a coat hanger with some string and hitting it with a metal spoon.
  • Talk to your child about the different sounds we associate with the weather. What sound do you hear when there is a heavy downpour, thunder or wind? Find words and sounds to describe them, such as rumbling thunder in a low voice, howling wind in a screechy voice.
  • Help your child to discover their voice in different ways – singing, whispering, talking, humming. Add some of the musical elements being taught at this stage, such as high, low, loud, quiet, fast, slow, rhythm.
  • Expose your child to as wide a range of music as you can.
  • This wacky question should invoke some creativity - what might music look like if it was a painted picture? Try it out by painting a music picture.
  • Play musical games together.
  • Encourage your child to learn to play an instrument.