Music Life of the School

Our vision at Rhenish Primary School is to instil an enduring love for music in our children.

Music fosters personal growth:

• Positive self concept of achievement and recognition
• Self expression
• Self discipline – responsibility and perseverance
• Social skills – mutual respect, co-operative behaviour and friendship
• Aesthetic taste – appreciation of beauty and complexity
• Psychomotor skills – co-ordination
• Increased powers of concentration
• Proven increased verbal memory

Our Music Department offers the following:

Instrumental Tuition:

Individual tuition is offered in the following instruments:

• Piano
• Recorder
• Flute
• Oboe
• Clarinet
• Saxophone
• Trumpet
• Trombone
• Violin
• Guitar (Acoustic and electrical)
• Key Board
• Drums

	The time-table is arranged in consultation with the relevant class and learning area teachers, in order to ensure the least disruption to the academic programme and other scheduled activities.
	Music theory lessons in groups are also offered to learners.
	The Music Department holds a number of music evenings to give each music learner the opportunity to perform in front of their parents, teachers and friends
	Learners are encouraged to participate in the Trinity College and Royal School of Music examinations, as well as the Stellenbosch Eisteddfod.

Senior Choir:

Senior Choir members are drawn from Grades 5, 6 and 7. Auditions are held at the beginning of every year, and as many singers as possible are accepted into the choir. The Senior Choir performs at four annual events: the Choir and Ensemble Soiree at the beginning of May, the Advanced Music concert in August, Senior Prize-Giving in November, and the Community Tea, also in November. During the latter concert, the Grade 7 members help to prepare the hall, decorate the tables and Christmas trees, prepare the eats for the guests, act as waitresses and lastly hand out gifts and posies to the guests. Depending on circumstances, the choir also performs for local churches when asked to do so and is available for suitable functions. Practices are held on a Monday afternoon from 14:30 to15:30.

Junior Choir:

Junior Choir members are drawn from Grades 1 to 4. There are no auditions for the Junior Choir, as we believe that every child should be given the opportunity to experience the joy of singing, and in so doing, to develop a sense of pitch. With regular practice, these young voices improve in range, strength and quality. The Junior Choir performs at the Advanced Concert in August, the Foundation Phase Open Day in October, Junior Prize Giving and the Community Tea in November each year. Practices are held straight after school on a Monday afternoon from 14:00 to14:30.

Orff:

Orff is the playing of pitched (melodic) and non-pitched (non-melodic) percussion instruments. It is primarily for the benefit of learners who do not have access to other instruments, or for whom individual lessons are too expensive. It allows them to benefit from, and participate in musical activities. There are two groups offered:

• Group 1 for Grades 1 and 2
• Group 2 for Grades 3 to 7

These groups are mainly for beginners and act as a training ground for the percussion group of the School Orchestra. The learners develop a strong rhythmic sense and note reading ability, so once they are proficient in playing all the different instruments, they are promoted to the School Orchestra’s percussion group.

Orchestra:

The orchestra is open to any learner who can play any instrument, irrespective of whether the learner takes music lessons at school or with a private teacher. The instruments most commonly found in our orchestra are:

Practices are held every Friday afternoon, generally in sectional groups for the first half of the year, so that intensive individual attention can be given. The orchestra also performs at all major school functions.

Arts and Culture: The music teachers are responsible for the dance, drama and music disciplines of the Arts and Culture curriculum. The visual art component is covered in the classes given by a trained art specialist. Arts and Culture forms a very important part of Outcomes Based Education. It is designed throughout to allow for the freedom of expression of individual cultural practices, and in so doing, to engender respect, to affirm, to acknowledge and to foster appreciation for one’s own culture and for the cultural practices of others. The organising principles have been loosely arranged as follows:

Foundation Phase Fantasy and play, imagination in the learner’s environment and the immediate environment, ideas, feelings and moods.

Intermediate Phase Physical, natural, social and cultural environments

Senior Phase National, African and global environment

There are four Learning Outcomes for each discipline.

Learning Outcome 1 - Creating, Interpreting and Presenting.
Learning Outcome 2 - Reflecting
Learning Outcome 3 - Participating and Collaborating
Learning Outcome 4 - Expressing and Communicating.

For each Learning Outcome, there is an organising principle, which changes from Grade to Grade.

There are five components or ways in which work can be assessed for Arts and Culture as a whole. They are:

Tests / Examinations
Performances
Exhibitions
Research Projects
Workbook / Journal

We are passionate about ensuring a continuation of each learner’s culture and cultural practices, and firmly believe that through the Arts and Culture classes, healing, reconciliation and true democratic freedom can be achieved.

Art Classes

All children attend art lessons as part of the Arts and Culture section of the curriculum. The Foundation Phase art classes are taken by the class teachers. The grade four and five art is taught by a specialist teacher, and the grade six and seven art is taught by a teacher from the P J Olivier Art Centre. There is also an extra-mural art club which learners can attend after school.

Through art concepts and art and design principles, the art programme aims to:

• enrich visual expressiveness
• experience joy through creative discovery
• extend the imagination
• instil sensitivity and aesthetic awareness

The Media Centre at Rhenish Primary School aims to provide a dynamic and efficient service to support the curriculum with a variety of media for teaching and learning.

Our Media Centre boasts 12 000 books for learners (with 600 having been accessed in 2005!) and 2 000 educators reference books. The latter collection has been re-arranged according to OBE Learning Areas. This enables quick and easy access to reference material for the busy teachers.

Furthermore, the media centre has a beautiful collection of posters, which are hung on shelving files. Teachers requisition these and hang them up in their classrooms before the commencement of a theme.

The Media Centre is a popular place during second breaks each day as the children browse around, looking for a book to read or to use for their projects. The librarian has a well trained group of grade six and seven library monitors to assist her with the younger children finding the required books.

All Foundation Phase children attend the Media for a period (half an hour) each week to select books they wish to take home for their parents to read to them. The grade four and five children attend the Media Centre for two periods (an hour) each week to learn the skill of using the Dewey System and the skill of being able to summarise matter they read. The grade six children have a half hour lesson with the focus on general knowledge.

Film Room

The videos have been carefully selected to enhance the themes which are taught throughout the school. The film room is constantly booked up as teachers make use of this facility.

IT Centre

The computer centre is run by FutureKids, with two teachers on duty for all lessons. The centre currently has 16 computers. Learners from grade two to grade seven attend an hour lesson each week, in which they learn basic computer skills. These include word processing, multimedia, desktop publishing and other Microsoft programmes as well as learning how to use a mouse and keyboard effectively.