The summer holidays are long, and coming back to school isn’t always easy, seeing as you’ve had 7 weeks without school work. For GCSE students, you might be starting to get worried, considering your exams are starting as soon as you come back to school. Doing some work and revision over the summer would be ideal to make sure you’re ready for the new term to begin.
So, how can MusicAtAshlawn help?
On this website, we do have the mark schemes available for you to look at, and you can find your appropriate scheme in the Pages section on the right. They can tell you what percentage each piece of exam work or coursework contributes to your final grade. This would be ideal to check back to, to see which areas you need to revise most before starting the new year. If you are thinking of revising, and want to find any sites to revise from, check out the bogroll in the sidebar for easy sites to get to. There are some sites where you can revise music history, or to see theory worksheets. Then again, you can also go on the Bitesize website which is also found in the sidebar.
The most important thing to do in summer is simply listen to a wider range of music. Even if you’ve got a busy 7 weeks ahead of you, it’s easy to put some different music on in the back ground- just to get yourself used to different genres of music, and ones from different time periods!
If you have and questions you’d like to ask about this, please leave a comment on this site, or e-mail any of the music staff for advice.
Amazingly! Since setting up our account on Numu, we have uploaded many different songs through all years of the school. We’ve actually had a few comments on some of the songs saying how well you are all doing in music.
This is excellent, and I’m sure there will be many more songs to upload- which means more views and more lovely comments! Keep it up!
Recently, the music department has gained some fantastic new equipment!
1] DJ Decks
-These can be used to a sum of different things. They can be handy for demonstration purposes within the Ashlawn Tech Group that runs at lunchtimes and after school. And, hopefully, there will be a DJ course available in the future for the decks to be used then.
2] A brand new set of Steel drums
-The steel pans will become useful for all students in music. They can learn about the origin of the pans, and will be able to learn how to play them too. We also want to start up a steel pan extra-curricular group for students to take part in.
3] 5 New Mac Mini’s
-These computers will be extremely useful to the music department. They can be used for recording music that students have written or performed, and also can also be used to write music onto. We now have 5 available in the music department, and will be ready to use in September 2009.
The music department will continue to gain more equipment, so that music at Ashlawn will be a great experience for everyone in the future. All we ask of you is that you respect the equipment, and treat it with care.
On the last week of the summer term, presentation assembly’s were being held for year 7, 8, 9, and 10. In each of these assembly’s, a number of students volunteered to perform in front of each year. We’d like to thank every person that took part, since all your performances were brilliant! There were a few who had never sung in front of an audience before, so well done to you for your achievement. We hope to hear from you again!
P.S. Well done to those students who won a certificate for either excellent progress, or outstanding achievement in music!
The music department is forever growing, gaining new equipment, and becoming more popular with so many students. We are also finding so many talented children, and are hoping that in the future, a recording studio will be built. This will mainly be used for GCSE and A level students to record their performances and compositions, yet, if anyone is wishing to record, they may be able to do so.
We think that this would be a great aspect to the new music department, but what do you think? You can either leave a comment, or vote on the poll below. Thank you!
Ashlawn school hosted an open evening on the 9th July 09. The main purpose of the evening was for current year 5 students to view the school, so they will be ready to choose their school options for next year. In music, both rooms had a number of different activity’s that the students and parents could take part in. There were such events as karaoke, live band performances, and djembe sessions where the visitors had a chance to join in. There was also the opportunity to look around the room at the wall displays, and a chance to talk to staff about any queries anyone had. The music rooms ended up having lots of attention, and in all, the evening was wonderful.
We’d also like to thank all the students and staff that helped out with the open evening- you really made an impact!
On the 21st of September, it is world peace day. In the music department at Ashlawn school, we are going to be hosting a world peace day event, where a number of year 6 choirs from different schools come along to Ashlawn and celebrate the day by singing with our own year 7′s, and the school choir. This would be a great way for primary schools to see what our music department has to offer, and would be a lovely way to bring the community together.
