Year 1 Music

Music lessons in year 1...

By the end of Year 1 children will

  1. Listen and appraise. Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high quality live and recorded music.

  2. Musical Activities. Use their voices expressively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes. Play tuned and un-tuned instruments musically. Listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high quality live and recorded music. Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.

  3. Perform and Share: Use their voices expressively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes. Play tuned and un-tuned instruments.

Autumn Term

Autumn 1 - Pulse and Rhythm (All about me)


  • To use my voice and hands to make music.

  • To clap and play in time to the music.

  • To play simple rhythms on an instrument.

  • To listen and repeat short rhythmic patterns.

  • To listen to and repeat short rhythmic patterns.

  • To understand the difference between pulse and rhythm.


Autumn 2 - To understand key musical vocabulary: dynamics, pitch, pulse, rhythm, structure, tempo, texture, timbre. Classical music, dynamics and tempo (Animals)

  • To use percussion and my body expressively in response to music.

  • To sing songs in sections.

  • To perform a song.

  • To use instruments to create different sounds.

  • To create and choose sounds.

Spring Term

Spring 1 - Musical Vocabulary (Under the sea)

  • To learn the musical tempo vocabulary pulse and tempo

  • To explain what dynamics and timbre are

  • To explain what pitch and rhythm are

  • To explain what texture and structure are




Spring 2 - Timbre and rhythmic patterns (Faitytales)

  • To use voices expressively to speak and chant.

  • To select suitable instrumental sounds to represent a character

  • To compose and play a rhythm.

  • To recognise how timbre is used to represent characters in a piece of music.

  • To keep the pulse using untuned instruments.



Summer Term

Summer 1 - Pitch and Tempo (Superheroes)

  • To understand the concept of pitch.

  • To create a pattern using two pitches.

  • To understand the concept of tempo.

  • To create a superhero theme tune.

  • To perform confidently as part of a group

Summer 2 - Vocal and body sounds (By the sea)

  • To understand that music can be used to represent an environment.

  • To understand how music can represent changes in an environment.

  • To select instruments to match seaside sounds.

  • To recognise and use dynamics and tempo.

  • To write music down and perform from a graphic score.