At Alverton, we are passionate about singing, music and drama. We are a Gold singing school and place great importance on giving children a wide range of musical and dramatic experiences throughout their whole time at Alverton. Each year, all pupils take part in class sharing assemblies, Christmas performances and a number of community events. We take part in Cornish Music Hub events like Songfest, have performed at the Hall for Cornwall, take part in Minack theatre and dance workshops as well as singing out and about in the community each Christmas. Alverton is known for its annual musical production which is extremely professional and plays to a packed house. You can find further information about this on the Musical Productions page in this section of the website.
We have a weekly singing assembly for the whole school, learning traditional hymns alongside a wide range of modern songs, run a Key Stage 2 school choir which performs in and out of school and have a lunchtime singing club. Alongside organised singing activites, we use a PA system to encourage singing and dancing out on the playground and our breakfast club regularly has karaoke for the children attending. Our Key Stage 2 Christmas service is a wonderful celebration of singing and music with a staff choir performing each year.
In addition to our love of singing, every class receives dedicated music lessons from a skilled practitioner which develop listening skills, composition, performance, understanding of simple music notation and appreciation of a range of music genre. We have number of peripatetic teachers who provide paid tuition in guitar, violin, woodwind and drums and provide time for those pupils and other instrumentalists to receive 1:1 and small group instrumental support from our music specialist in school. We have a ukulele lunchtime club and take part in the Cornish Music Hub whole-class instrument lessons.
We build instrumental performance opportunities throughout the year for any child who wants to take part and work with peripatetic teachers to help pupils learn pieces that will be used in school. Bands are formed for events, for example Samba bands for Mazey or a string quartet to provide backing for a Beatles song. This fluid approach gives pupils with a wide scope of ability the chance to perform and builds their confidence and motivation to learn an instrument. Alongside this, we are planning to work with Mounts Bay Academy who are offering support for a rock band.
Alverton School loves music. We invite bands to perform at our school fair, have teachers who wander through the school singing and play music whenever possible. However, we always want to make it even better. A dedicated music space is being planned, an outdoor stage is about to be built and we are hoping to give pupils and community musicians the chance to perform here during the summer term. We want to instil a lifelong love of music, singing and performance in all our children.