Musical School
Charanga Musical School
Fully-subsidised access — so there is no charge for your school
- Includes the UK’s leading Scheme to teach the National Curriculum for Music at KS1–2
- Week-by-week Schemes of Work with lesson plans, or create and share your own
- A customisable library of songs, ready-made lessons and resources
- Support for assessment, special needs education and personalised learning
A high-quality music education should engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement.
Why Musical School?
Much more than a series of Schemes, Musical School is an award-winning primary music education programme housed within Charanga’s configurable music teaching and learning platform. Follow a Scheme or access over 25,000 Charanga resources, creative tools and more to deliver high-quality curriculum music in your school. Mix and match anything with your own uploaded materials, ready to share with your students. Follow or create a music curriculum that enables all children in your school to meet their musical potential.
- Suitable for music specialists and generalists
- Used by over 70,000 teachers and over 57% of UK primary schools
- Free CPD, training and support from a designated Charanga contact
- Over 96% of users report a positive impact on the quality of their teaching and pupil attainment
Supporting all aspects of music teaching in your school
Combining solid pedagogy, inspiring technology, great music and resources, Musical School is one of the world’s leading primary music resources. Find out why by exploring the programme and our wider platform by signing up for free.
Scheme
A step-by-step approach to teaching music in your school
Musical School’s Original Scheme provides teachers with week-by-week lessons for each year group in the school, from ages 5–11.
Used by over 70,000 specialist and non-specialist teachers globally, the Scheme provides lesson plans, assessment, clear progression and exciting whiteboard resources for every lesson.
The Scheme supports all the requirements of the national curriculum in England and is absolutely in line with published Ofsted guidance.
Musical School Learning
The learning within our Original Scheme is based on:
- Listening and Appraising
- Musical Activities — creating and exploring
- Singing, Playing Instruments and Performing
Everything is clearly and simply explained, and the planning support is extensive.
Interactive Teaching Resources
Because the programme’s on-screen resources are so visual, and everything is at your fingertips, each lesson is full of music and the children enjoy every moment.
Musical School Assessment
We’ve looked at all the great thinking that has been done on assessment and created an easy-to-use framework that’s perfectly suited for both music specialists and non-musicians.
In essence, there are three aspects to the assessment:
- Aged guidance with the expected musical learning against which to assess
- One-page lesson plans with the facility for you to formatively (continuously) assess
- A digital evidence storage facility to help you build a musical profile for classes and individuals
Regular updates
We constantly seek to improve what we do in response to the feedback we receive from teachers. Among other things, we regularly refresh the Musical School Scheme, adding more progressive Listening & Appraising and Musical Activities to give you more variety and to challenge students of all ages. Everything is designed to give you flexibility when you need it most and to help you plan for the academic year ahead.
New units are published throughout the year to inspire and to keep children engaged. Visit our website, sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social media to be the first to hear about all of the latest additions.
“Charanga is absolutely fantastic. I use the rhythm grids as a starter activity in all my classes. The pupils’ understanding of rhythm and the accuracy with which they perform has really improved.”
Freestyle
A vast, growing library of music resources
While many teachers might enjoy using Charanga’s Scheme options most, others may like the more flexible Freestyle approach provided by Musical School’s resource library.
You can choose from a range of Charanga music resources from this library to mix in and match with your own. You can also use the library to find and save resources linked to many other areas of music-making in your school.
Introducing YuStudio®
YuStudio® is a significant addition to Charanga's suite of teaching and learning tools for music education. Students can use our beginner-friendly digital audio workstation (DAW) to make music whenever they're online; they save and share their work with you in Yumu. A series of 'Create With YuStudio®' projects support older primary-aged children in learning how to arrange and mix their own compositions. Teacher Guides and video tutorials are there to support you at every step.
A look inside the Freestyle library
Topics
Musical School provides topics containing collections of songs or related resources linked to popular primary themes. There are no lesson plans, as they are intended to be used flexibly to support your teaching in various contexts. Each topic is categorised by age range, although many can be used across all primary year groups.
Units
The stand-alone units within the Freestyle section can be combined or added to other materials to form a unique music plan for your school. They offer a pathway containing every resource from the unit in a single lesson, giving you complete flexibility in your teaching. Many of these units, which cover a wide range of musical genres, centre around a central song – some well-known and some specially commissioned for young voices.
Productions
Charanga’s full-school musical productions can be used to celebrate key points in the school year. Each production provides everything you need, including tracks for learning the songs, backing tracks for the performance, scripts, scores and director guides. The songs can be used in schools as often as you like. However, in most cases, it will be necessary to take out a Public Performance Licence for public shows. Please contact training@charanga.com for more information.
Listening Centres and Courses
The Listening Centre offers teachers a colourful collection of music covering a range of periods, styles and genres. Listen to over 150 musical works by style, genre or era; access a guided Classical music library complete with fast facts and historical context; and explore a monthly Listening Calendar, linking music to specific events throughout the year. A range of courses will also enrich, enhance and extend your curriculum delivery.
Creative Tools
A suite of music-teaching resources is used throughout the platform to provide teachers and learners with an enjoyable, effective and inspiring experience.
The fundamental activities in music learning encompass listening and understanding, singing, improvising, composing and playing instruments.
Each of these areas benefits from a choice of several Charanga tools that provide variety for teachers and support the full range of learning modalities. They include:
Rhythm Grids
A great way to introduce students to simple and compound 2, 3 and 4-beat time signatures. Children love the rotation feature particularly.
Music Explorer
An exciting resource supporting lots of different musical activities, including pulse games, listening skills, improvising, composing and use of notation.
Percussion Writer
Play along with excerpts from famous works, or create your own simple classroom percussion pieces.
Musical Toolkit
A resource that supports the learning and understanding of generic musical ideas and terminology, such as pulse and rhythm, notations and historical context.
Quickbeats
Start making your own beats with a range of kits, from a ready-made template or a blank grid.
Music Notepad
A great way to teach and learn the written language of music. Students can use it to notate melodies in any key before saving and sharing their work with you.
Charanga Sing
A fantastic teaching resource that encourages everyone to sing more!
Extensive research has shown the undeniably positive impact that singing has on emotional, physical and mental well-being. This is why singing features so highly in Charanga’s music curricula and on educational agendas globally – as well as simply being a great thing to do!
Charanga Sing contains a growing bank of over 500 songs presented intuitively to be used by vocal specialists, confident singers or those just keen to encourage more singing every day. There are songs for all occasions, ages and groupings, from soloists to massed choirs. The repertoire covers a wide range of styles, cultures and purposes; each piece is carefully chosen.
By providing songs from around the world and their cultural contexts, learners’ music education experiences are enriched. Every student in your classroom is a culture bearer, representative of a community. Teachers are encouraged to use this rich resource accordingly, offering a way for students to explore their identity.
Finding songs
Finding the right song is easy. Use the categories provided, such as age range or genre, to highlight suitable material or the Musical School search engine to look for specific words – perhaps linking to work you are doing in other curriculum areas.
A wealth of information
You’ll find a wealth of information for each song, helping you decide which one will work best for you and the children. This information is presented with a brief overview of the song appearing in the list view, such as age suitability, difficulty and genre.
Opening the Song Description and Details reveals teaching ideas, where else in the programme the song is found, musical guidance such as range, key and tempo, and much more.
Quick access to your favourite songs
When looking through the song bank, you can ‘star’ songs that will be useful for your teaching or specific projects. These will be added to your My Resources page with My Workspace, allowing easy access whenever they are needed.
Singing Courses
Musitrax Sing 1 & 2
A child-centred approach to music-teaching for younger children based on Kodály principles, using singing and singing games, with fun and learning through play at its heart.
For Younger Children
A bank of nursery rhymes, action songs, including many old favourites, and specially written songs perfect for little voices.
Vocal Coach
A vocal health section all about taking care of the voice with fantastic body and vocal warm-ups, exercises and popular tongue twisters.
For Older Children
A wide range of unison and two or more part songs. Some are specially composed or traditional; many are new and very well-known from popular shows, musicals and Pop artists – all ideal for encouraging every one of your pupils to sing.
Song Collections
There are lots of 2 or more part songs within the Song Collections section, which are ideal for older children and choirs. Many of these collections contain well-loved materials which will prove popular with everyone.
All Songs A-Z
Charanga Songs
2-Part Well-known Songs
2-Part Film & Theatre Songs
Songs from Friday Afternoons
3-5 Part Songs of Today – Sing Out
Instruments
Resources for popular classroom instruments
Playing instruments is an important part of music-making. This section is full of resources for popular classroom instruments, such as recorders and guitars. All are designed to extend learning and can be used as part of the music curriculum or as enrichment activities. Many have been developed in collaboration with leading authors and publishers.
The lovely Heather Ward’s Blown Away Recorder Books 1 and 2 use Charanga’s latest technology and are suitable for children throughout the primary phase.
Two recorder books, Guinea Pig Gig and Fairground Fiesta, accompany the series.
Also for recorders is the ever-popular Jane Sebba’s Recorder Course with its extra repertoire, perfect for the younger beginner.
Kay Tucker’s progressive Stringbabies series caters for beginner cello and violin players, helping them to compose their own melodies, develop their singing, rhythmic and aural skills, and sight-read.
Fiddle Time remains one of the UK’s most popular violin teaching methods. Fiddle Time authors Kathy and David Blackwell have selected 30 pieces suited to whole-class violin teaching and its need for flexible learning progression.
The Beginner Guitarist has brilliant video tutorials and an added feature allowing you to slow the video without changing the pitch. This course is ideal for small groups and after-school clubs.
The Ukulele Course is aimed at older primary-aged children and contains interactive resources and detailed lesson plans. Teachers who are not familiar with the ukulele may wish to follow the course themselves first.
Charanga’s Djembe Course is ideal for older pupils but can be adapted for younger children. Pupils are encouraged to play accurately and to enjoy being creative. The course includes simple plans for 12 lessons.
Two Glockenspiel Stages introduce the language of music in a practical way. Children have the opportunity to explore and develop their playing skills. You can decide whether to follow the six steps in each stage or use the Flexible Pathway and work at your own pace.
The Beginner Keyboard Course is an excellent introduction to the keyboard. The interactive pieces offer a choice of notations and speed and come with a helpful loop function. All the materials can be printed or shared with students to practise between lessons. The course works equally well with individual pupils, groups or whole classes.
SEND in Musical School
Supporting inclusive practice
Musical School’s SEND section is dedicated to supporting teachers working with children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. While a discrete area, many teachers use the section alongside the main Musical School platform, allowing them to find the most appropriate resources for each learner.
The SEND section has four areas:
SEND Scheme – Anyone Can Play
Our SEND Scheme of ready-made lessons is called ‘Anyone Can Play’ and was devised by the Music Unlimited team, leveraging its 30 years of experience in special school settings.
This Scheme is suitable for youngsters at any point on the learning difficulty spectrum and is ideal for use by the non-specialist teacher. Although there are whiteboard resources, the Scheme works equally well without them.
SEND CREATE
The award-winning SEND CREATE uses iPads to inspire and nurture school-aged composers, improvisers and performers. Like the SEND Scheme, SEND CREATE has been devised by specialists in this field – in this case, Transformance Music.
CREATE offers four unique projects which are suitable for all learners:
- Make a Music Video
- Music To Dance To
- Sensory India!
- Improvise and Groove!
SEND Freestyle – Resource Library
The SEND Freestyle library brings together bespoke versions of the most popular Charanga resources from the Musical School platform. If appropriate, these lighter versions can provide a seamless pathway into the main Freestyle section.
SEND Freestyle – Signed Songs
Created by musician and music teacher, Samantha Harper, the Signed Songs collection is presented in alphabetical order for easy access, and can also be found within Sing as an additional way to communicate the song.
Yumu for Students
A safe online learning space for students
Teachers increasingly rely on online learning approaches to educate their students and supplement traditional classroom methods.
Those using the Charanga platform adopt Yumu to support their students’ music-making and learning outside the classroom and at home. Yumu currently supports over 2.5 million students.
Accessibility and inclusivity
Yumu is a secure online space where students learn, play and develop their musicianship by:
- completing assignments that you set using your own favourite resources or Charanga’s
- engaging in independent learning, chosen from a range of exciting Yumu Packages
Who can use Yumu?
Teachers using Charanga’s Musical School programme can use Yumu to support every child and young person they teach. It’s quick and easy to set up whole classes with usernames and passwords (similar to MyMaths and Mathletics).
Support for blended, hybrid and home learning
Sharing resources with students and supporting their music-making between lessons via Yumu is effortless. Teachers who are less familiar with the platform need only follow three steps to get started.
Support and guidance
To ensure you’re getting the most out of Yumu, Charanga’s wider platform and all Yumu Packages, please email training@charanga.com. The videos below illustrate how easy it is to support students working independently at home.
Quick Start Video: Providing Access to Yumu
This video covers how a teacher provides access to Yumu and the various options available for sharing materials with students.
Video contents:
- What is Yumu?
- First, create a Student Group
- Add your students
- Download your students’ login details (as individual letters or a spreadsheet)
- Independent learning
- Share your own lessons
- Share a lesson from a Charanga unit
- Set the order of resources in an assignment and add due dates
- See how your assignments will appear to your students in Yumu
Quick Start Video: How Students Access and use Yumu
Once students have been set up with a Yumu account, this video shows them, their parents or carers, how to log into the platform, access its resources and complete any assignments set by their teacher. Teachers and students can log in to find more information, guidance and support on Yumu in Charanga’s Help section.
My Workspace
As well as the thousands of musical resources available on the platform, you can also easily upload your own
My Workspace is personal to you and allows you to access resources, create and edit lessons, and share them with your pupils. Each teacher must have their own personal login to the platform. If you don’t, your school’s designated ‘lead music teacher’ can add you to Charanga’s system.
My Student Groups
It’s quick and easy to set up whole classes with usernames and passwords for Yumu to enable pupils to access ready-made packages and any lessons you have shared. You can also track pupils’ usage and progress.
My Resources
My Resources is your personal library of resources to use in your teaching. Whenever you come across a Charanga resource you like, simply add it to the library by ‘starring’ it. As well as the thousands of musical resources available on Charanga’s platform, you can upload your own into this area.
My Lessons
Each lesson is a collection, or playlist, of resources. There are two ways to build a lesson:
- Start with a ready-made lesson and add or remove resources
- Create a new lesson by using the search facility to find resources and add these along with anything you already have in My Resources
This allows you to create your own lessons, which can be used in your teaching or shared with your pupils through Yumu. Lessons can also be downloaded for use offline.