Y5/6 have been listening to Vaughan William’s ‘Lark Ascending.’ This piece of music is a musical setting of George Meredith’s poem of the same name. ‘The Lark Ascending’ has a beautiful violin melody, depicting the soaring skylark flying above the fields near Margate. The piece was written just as WW1 was breaking out and, a hundred years later, it is still shoing its enduring appeal – in both 2014 and 2015 it topped the Classic FM poll and was voted the nation’s favourite piece of music!

The children responded to the piece of music in different ways, including painting, writing a word picture, and creating a composition which contrasts the peacefulness of the bird, with the horror of war.

Listen to some of our compositions!

KS2 had a fantastic day this week travelling through the decades of the 20^th century. We sang the Blues in the 1920’s, danced our way through Swing and hand jived in to the 1950’s! It was all Peace and Love in the 1960’s (complete with duvets!) and we all realised we all knew a lot more about music from the 1970’s than we thought. Finally on our journey we took part in a Battle of the Bands in the 1990’s, along with our very own Liam Gallagher! The children gained an insight in to iconic music and artists from these decades as well as the cultural effects they had on the world. Of course, we all dressed up for the part, the order of the day definitely being David Bowie! From Elvis to the Spice Girls, Paul McCartney to Kate Bush we all looked (and sounded!) the part.