Music is taught and valued throughout Byron Wood.

Our Music Development Plan for 2024-25 can be found here.

In Early Years, children are introduced to common nursery rhymes and songs, and familiar tunes are used to help the children learn routines.

From Y1-6, the school uses the Charanga curriculum to structure the curriculum, adapted to suit our needs.  This includes exposing our children to songs from different genres, cultures and time periods, becoming fluent in basic musical elements, and using tuned percussion to compose and improvise melodies.

In Years 3 and 4, children have music lessons delivered by a specialist teacher from Sheffield Music Hub. They also have weekly singing lessons delivered by Grange Park Opera, through their Primary Robins programme.

We have 2 Singing Assemblies a week: one for Y1-3, and another for Y4-6.  These expose the children to further music; they warm up their voices in a range of exercises; they then learn a song, with particular focus on the relevant musical elements and techniques for performance.  Videos of some of our past performances can be found on our YouTube channel.

We have some of our highlights below:

Astrea Choir Concert 2025

Again, our choir took part in the annual Astrea Choir Concert in Astrea Academy Sheffield, along with other Sheffield schools in the Trust.  We had a fantastic time and wowed the audience with our performance of Proud Mary.  The concert was covered by The Sheffield Star and you can read all about it below:

Pupils from Sheffield schools form a choir and raise the roof in concert

If You Can Walk, You Can Dance

Our new year is off to a great start, with Key Stage 1 learning this uplifting song, with a really positive message, based on a Zimbabwean proverb.  Just listen to the energy in the room!

Octopus’ Garden 2024

In our Singing Assemblies, FS have joined Years 1, 2 and 3 in learning the Beatles’ classic song Octopus’ Garden.  You can listen to it below.  We hope you enjoy it!

Astrea Choir Concert 2024

 

We were thrilled to take part in Astrea Academy Trust’s first Choir Concert in March 2024.  This took place in Astrea Academy Sheffield Secondary, with all of the Astrea primary schools from Sheffield.  We sang a few songs together, and then Byron Wood performed a song which they had learnt called Poor Wayfaring Stranger, a traditional American spiritual.  Luckily, we were able to capture this performance to share:

Remembrance Day 2023

To mark this year’s Remembrance Day, our Key Stage 2 children learnt the song Only Remembered from the stage production of War Horse.  Our Early Years pupils also made their own poppies, and we would like to share both those pieces of work with you.

Byron Wood Shanty!

We were very happy on our return to school to jump on the Sea Shanty bandwagon by learning the song Nelson’s Blood.  Years 4, 5 and 6 then wrote their own verses and we performed it together.

The Burngreave Carol

There is a tradition of carols in South Yorkshire dating back hundreds of years.  These are still sung in the Sheffield area, by communities rather than by traditional choirs, and are often named for the village that they were written in, such as Oughtibridge and Stannington.  Mr Surridge wrote one for our school and taught it to his Year 3 class.  You can watch it by clicking on the link below:

Burngreave – A Christmas Carol in the Sheffield tradition from Byron Wood Academy