This programme offers useful guidance for any primary teachers interested in introducing composition to their KS1/2 music lessons.
Penny Smith, a Year 2 teacher at White Oak School in Kent, doesn't have a great deal of experience teaching music. With the help of TA Marion Dowell however, she demonstrates that musical ability is not essential to teaching composition.
Penny and Marion plan their lesson with school music co-ordinator Gwynneth Johnson and composer Stephen Chadwick but their approach can be easily used without this level of support.
Taking their inspiration from a recent literacy class, the children are asked to base their work on one of two story endings: a robot falling down the stairs or a car crashing into a wall.
Classmates get together in pairs to create a simple sound pattern that continues and then suddenly stops, reflecting the story illustrations they have drawn.
