Attaining your Award: Five Simple Steps

The Sing Up Awards Tool is designed to help you apply for an Award and match your school's singing against the Award criteria.

Our five-step guide shows you how simple it is to get started with the Awards Tool and begin recording your school's singing activities.

Five steps to your Sing Up Award

Step 1. Choose your Champion, make your pledge

Your Awards Champion can be any staff member who’s willing to act on behalf of your school for the Sing Up Awards.

Once they’re appointed, the Awards Champion provides basic details, including the school’s Sing Up involvement and singing activities that are already happening.

When this information is entered online, you can download a pledge certificate and your school’s ready to start earning a Sing Up Award.

2. Set your goals

Once the Awards Champion is signed into the Awards Tool, they can create a simple plan to outline what the school will do to achieve an Award, guided by the Sing Up Awards criteria. By using the Awards Tool, each school can tailor its goals according to its resources, needs and abilities.

3. Collect your evidence

As well as the Awards Champion, all members of staff can upload evidence to show how the school is meeting its objectives and the Sing Up Awards criteria. The format of your evidence is very flexible, so you can upload a mix of text, links, documents, images, audio or video files – anything that shows your singing activities.

4. Make your report

The Awards Champion fills out a final report online to summarise how your school has been fulfilling the award criteria, attaching all the recorded evidence to demonstrate how and when it’s been achieved.

5. Choose your supporter

Once your final report is complete, the Awards Champion chooses the school’s Area Leader or Awards Advocate at the Music Service to endorse their award application.

If your Award application is endorsed, your Awards Champion is notified, and you can immediately download your award certificate and logo.

Let’s get started!

To start using the Sing Up Awards tool, register or log in.

Once you’re logged in, select the Sing Up Awards tool. You’re on your way!

We’ve compiled a list of requirements for headteachers, staff, pupils and the whole school community.  To help you prepare here are some tips to help you achieve your Silver or Gold Award.

The Silver Award

Headteacher requirement:

Your school must endorse the Sing Up Awards

Your headteacher and the governors must endorse the decision to apply for the Sing Up Awards, and all staff should be informed that the school is applying.

Tips to gain endorsement:

• If you're a music coordinator or singing leader, ask the headteacher and governors if you could attend a governors’ meeting to give a short report on Sing Up and your school taking part in the Awards.  
• Put up a copy of the Sing Up Awards pledge certificate in the staff room to let everybody know that you are aiming to become a Silver Award School.  
• Request a five-minute update on the progress of your Sing Up Award at every weekly staff meeting until the process is complete. The updates will also act as a reminder for colleagues to collect and upload evidence.
• Invite members of the governing body to participate in any Sing Up training offered to the staff or pupils. Even if they don’t attend, it keeps singing and the Awards on their agenda.
• Informal singing often takes place naturally in many Special schools. Explain to your Headteacher that the Awards will provide recognition for the current efforts of staff and pupils, as well as giving the school something to aim for.

 
Pupil requirement:

Singing must occur in every class more than twice a week

Tips to encourage singing in each class:  

• Encourage each teacher to sing the register rather than saying it.
• For younger children, Welcome Everybody is a song that can be used at the beginning of a session, in particular for roll calls. For older children, Name Stomp or Concentration is a rhyme with movement that features a roll call.
• The Warm-up and Stomp Canon or the Grandma Rap are good songs to energise a session.
• Try using a task-based song to help get jobs done, particularly in groups. For instance, teaching and singing a ‘tidying up’ song really helps the tidying up process to happen.
• Counting songs aid the memory for number work. Search the Song Bank under Mathematics for songs that help with counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.  
• We sing slower than we speak and songs contain much repetition. Learning new words is easier through song and this can be used to great advantage in foreign language teaching. For French lesson, try A Douze.

Pupil requirement:

The whole school sings together at least once a week

Tips to get the whole school to sing together at least once a week:

• Establish a singing assembly. As a singing leader, you may be responsible for this. Try to encourage all the staff to stay, join in and endorse what you are doing. They will learn new songs which they can use with their class and will see the best ways of teaching songs.
• Si Si Si is a Congolese greeting song suitable for large numbers. Or you could try Senwa Dedende, which is a round or Halima Pakasholo with call and response.
• To keep the singing assembly fun, make your assemblies interactive. Action songs are a great way of motivating the whole school and are a great way of integrating mainstream and non-mainstream children. There’s nothing more exciting for a child than seeing their teacher jumping around to Dem Bones!
• Search the Song Bank under Religious Education for songs appropriate to the time of year, and around festivals.
• Collect songs that celebrate different traditional festivals. Log into the Sing Up site and you can save them to your Song Bank favourites. Check out Chanukkah, Chanukkah, Gospel Medley, This Little Light of Mine, Apples and Honey (Jewish New Year).
   

Staff requirement:

All staff should be encouraged to get involved in singing

Tips to encourage staff to get involved in singing:

• Teach staff a short song each week at the beginning of the staff meeting, just for five minutes. Choose a song from the Song Bank – use the performance and echo tracks to help you teach it. Ask your headteacher to endorse what you’re doing and to learn the song alongside the staff.
• Gather a collection of playground songs and share them with the playground and lunchtime supervisors. Jack Be Nimble is good for Key Stage 1, and I Like Coffee is a good playground game for Key Stage 2. Also see Singing Playgrounds.
• Assemble a collection of indoor singing games that are suitable to play when it’s too wet to go outside. Share these with teaching assistants, and lunchtime and playground supervisors. Here Sits Mousie is great for Key Stage 1 and Moses Supposes is fun for Key Stage 2. Also see Singing Playgrounds.
• Start an after-school singing club. It’s a fun way to spend time with your colleagues and grow in confidence musically at the same time.
• Make a rota and each teacher can post up a Song of the Week on your staff-room notice board.  Skill-sharing is a wonderful, quick and effective way of learning what works and what doesn’t.
• The informal singing that takes place throughout the day is a valid contribution to school life. Children with special needs, especially PMLD pupils, get a huge amount of satisfaction from hearing their support workers singing to and with them.   

Staff requirement:

At least two staff should be confident to lead singing

You don’t need to be a musician to lead singing, and you don’t need to read music.

Tips to enable staff to lead singing:

• Sing to children with an unforced singing quality and with obvious confidence and enthusiasm, and they will be keen to copy you.
• Contact your Sing Up Area Leader to put you in touch with singing courses and training opportunities in your area, or to help build singing into your classroom teaching.
• Explore our free Song Bank. New songs are added every week which will help you build your classroom repertoire.
• Have a cheese and wine evening at a colleague’s house and go through the songs on the Song Bank. There will be many songs that you already know and having a fun and informal sing-along will break the ice and very probably provide the opportunity for some memorable laughs.
• Think about a buddy system where lead singers are helping develop and support less confident staff. Mentoring other staff members means that leading singing becomes less reliant on a small number of people.

Whole school community requirement:

Families and visitors must get involved in singing activities

Tips to involve families and visitors in singing activities:

• All schools are diverse – so get parents involved by inviting them to teach a song from their culture or religion.
• Finish school concerts with an audience participation song.
• Start a weekly singing session for families, before their children start school. This builds relationships for transition years between parents, teachers and children. Little Johnny Dances is a French song that has fun puppet actions, and would be a good starter for a family singing session.

Whole school community requirement:

Singing must support the School Development Plan and should be included in the Self Evaluation Form.

Singing can be of huge benefit to children as individuals. Involvement in singing improve creativity within school, and also has a positive impact on standards in literacy and numeracy.

Tip to ensure that singing supports the School Development Plan:

• If you’re the school music coordinator, you might consider rewriting part of your school music policy to include your involvement with Sing Up and your commitment to attaining a  Sing Up Award.
• Include your Silver Award objectives in the School Development Plan in targets such as “To develop Creative Opportunities for Staff and Children” and “To enable children to develop personally.”
• Curriculum Attainment Targets could include “To raise the profile of singing and stimulate creativity in learning” with the Action reading “Pledge to and begin working towards the Sing Up Silver Award.”

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The Gold Award

Headteacher requirement:

The headteacher sings with the school

Tips to encourage the headteacher to sing with the school:

• When teaching new songs to the rest of the staff (perhaps in a staff meeting or training day), encourage the headteacher to take part, and to endorse what you do.
• Assemblies are great opportunities for headteachers to sing with the school, or suggest that, from time to time, the headteacher goes out on the playground and helps children to sing.
• Suggest that the headteacher accompanies the children when they take part in singing festivals and Sing Up events.
• Headteachers working with children with challenging behaviour can choose songs from the Song Bank that re-enforce a positive message within the school. Songs such as Spread a Little Happiness, Bright Blue Sky, Believe, Make Someone Happy and No Wars Will Stop us Singing encourage co-operation and self-belief.  

Pupil requirement:

Children should develop reflective and critical skills about singing.

Tips to help children develop reflective and critical skills about singing:

• Try recording or videoing a class or school performance, and then show it to the children for their analysis.
• During the teaching of a song, ask your pupils to give their opinions about certain decisions that need to be made. Song of Youth is a Chinese folksong and is ideal to raise questions and discussion. For children with Special Needs it can offer a rare opportunity to critically reflect on the concept of self.
• Try performing a song in different ways. Ask a group of pupils to listen and choose the performance they consider the most effective or use a simple and free software programme to record the children singing and play it back to them.
• Teachnology can often help children with severe Special Needs to develop reflective and critical skills about singing, for example, using a two message device, will allow children to choose between songs- helping them to think about what they like and don’t like.
• Involve the children in making a wall-chart that lists your repertoire of songs.  In this way, children will be reminded of their achievements and they can reflect on the progress they have made and the new songs that they have learned each term.

Pupil requirement:

Pupils sometimes lead singing

Tips to encourage pupils to lead singing:

• Nominate pupil singing leaders who can help younger pupils to play and sing playground game and songs.
• Suggest that each class has a lucky dip bag of songs. As a reward for hard work, or during Golden Time, a selected pupil pulls out a lucky dip song and leads the song with the class.
• Have a pupil who is confidence in their singing to lead the class in a known song
• For PMLD children and those with communication issues, record a repeated phrase from a story or song for a child to play back at the right time. Stories and books with a musical refrain are also suitable, such as the Three Billy Goat’s Gruff and We’re Going on a Bearhunt.
• Simple songs which contain lots of repetition, such as Alice the Camel, are a great way to enable MLD children to lead singing. Make six Velcro pictures showing Alice with one hump, two humps, three humps etc. Get the leader to stick the right camel onto the board when prompted by the song.
• Use Makaton to enable children who may have communication difficulties to lead singing activities. For hearing impaired children, singing and signing is also a great way to involve them in leading songs.

Pupil requirement:

There is group singing for each child in the school everyday

Tips to enable daily group singing for every child:

• Use songs to enhance and inform other subject areas. Paddy Works on the Railway can be used as a part of a history lesson on the Victorian era. Try Chocoholics or Alice the Camel in maths, London’s Burning for history, Alouette for French.  
• Search the Song Bank by curriculum area to find songs that tie in with the themes and ideas in your lessons.
• Group activities can be assisted by singing together. The Grand Old Duke of York is a great song to help kids find a beat when they walk together. Songs can be sung on the bus on the way to swimming, or any school trips.
• Most special schools sing a Hello and Goodbye song each day. This counts as group singing, so use it as evidence when applying for the Gold Award.

Pupil requirement:

Children take part in choosing repertoire, and in finding and creating their own songs

Tips to encourage children to take part in choosing songs:

• Ask the children to learn singing, skipping and playground games from their parents, grandparents and relatives.
• Encourage pupils to make up their own playground songs and games.
• Ask the class to take a well-known tune and create new words to use in class situations.
• Use the Song Bank in the classroom. Play songs to children and get them to vote on their favourites. For PMLD children and those with little to no mobility sometimes it can just be a case of watching their reactions and being attuned to their emotional responses in order to discover what they like and don’t like.
• Encourage parents and carers to help their children to make and bring in a list of childrens’ favourite songs from home.

Pupil requirement:

Children can sing in a range of ways, such as solos, playgrounds, groups and choirs

Tips to encourage different ways of singing:

• Many singing games give children the opportunity to sing a phrase or two by themselves as part of a game. If started young enough, this becomes the norm for children in the music lesson and in the playground. Here I Come and Witch Witch are fantastic examples of easy songs where children can feel confident singing phrases by themselves. Make sure you check out the Singing Playgrounds.
• If you haven't started a regular school choir, this is the time to begin. Contact your Sing Up Area Leader and ask for advice.
• For PMLD children, singing expectant pauses can be a really effective way for children to take part in singing activities, encouraging them to offer a vocal response. Nursery rhymes and chants are particularly effective: use Incy Wincy Spider and Round and Round the Garden to encourage children to respond. A squeal of excitement can be a valid form of vocalisation and participation for PMLD children.  
• Try adding contrasts to songs that have verses which repeat. Why not make at least one verse a solo duet or small ensemble verse. Use songs such as The Quartermaster’s Store to initiate Call and Response “dialogues.”

Pupil requirement:

Children and staff create new original music with their voices

Tips to enable children and staff to create new original music with their voices:

• Ask your Sing Up Area Leader if there is a songwriting or improvisation course for singing leaders in your area.
• Invite younger pupils to create new words, rhythms and breaks to songs – even suggest new verses.
• Very young children can improvise snippets of songs as they play. If the staff who play with them also improvise, it encourages the practice to continue.
• Music software is available that allows children to compose songs on computers – this might be a more accessible route into music and singing for certain pupils.
• For MLD and PMLD children, use books which provide vocal and instrumental soundtracks to the stories. The Rainbow Fish, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Igor the Bird who Couldn’t Sing are good starting points.  
• If a child finds it hard to wait in line then try writing a song with them about it. Use visual cue cards, showing the various steps of waiting, to show the child what he is expected to do during each part of the song.  
• Many PMLD and ASD children are fascinated by reflecting of their own behaviour and seem to become more aware of themselves, acting with intentionality.  Sing what the child is doing, mirror their vocalisation and make that into a rhythm for the group.    

Staff requirement (teaching and non-teaching):

Two or more people to lead singing at least twice a week

Some important qualities which singing leaders need are enthusiasm for singing, an ability to pass that enthusiasm on to children, increasing confidence in teaching songs to children, a desire to improve their singing practice.

Tips to encourage staff to lead singing:

• Singing leaders can build a school song repertoire with the help of the Sing Up Song Bank and the Sing Up magazine.
• Further musical knowledge can be built up through continuing professional development. Contact your Area Leader.
• Sing at the beginning of meetings - it will give your energy levels a boost and provides a positive way to begin sessions.

Staff requirement (teaching and non-teaching):

All staff are involved in singing at least once a week

Tips to encourage staff to get involved in singing at least once a week:

• Encourage all staff to stay and sing in a whole school assembly. Choose call and response songs and rounds where one Singing Leader directs half the children and the second Leader the other. There is nothing like introducing an element of competition to get children singing enthusiastically! Try Boom Chicka Boom, London’s Burning and Chay Chay Coolay.
• Get together with the other teachers and singing leaders in your school to swap ideas and learn new songs. Discuss ways of linking songs and themes so that class teachers can work on the same songs with a view to whole school singing.  
• Ask the headteacher if you can teach a new song to all staff at the beginning of a staff meeting.
• Try and book a continuing professional development training session during part of a training day for all staff.
• Invite members of staff to help with school performances.

Whole school community requirements:

Singing takes place across and beyond the music curriculum

Tips to make sure singing takes place across and beyond the music curriculum:

• Create a special day or week that focuses on a certain subject, theme or idea that inspires music and singing.
• Use songs for every area of the curriculum. The Song Bank lists curriculum links for every song so it is quick and easy to find a song that is suitable for your lesson, whether it be Geography, History or PSHE.  
• Get involved in primary school singing festivals run by your music support service or specialist performing arts college.
• Encourage your children to join local choirs after school and to attend holiday singing clubs and camps.
• Take pupils out of school to perform in local care homes or community centres.

Whole school community requirements:

Singing energises a range of everyday school activities and routines

Tips to ensure that singing energises different activities:

• Sing on the bus to swimming lessons or other visits. Create laminated song cards to prompt teachers who escort class visits. Three Native American Chants is a good song to introduce on bus journeys.
• Invite a local Guide or Scout leader or commissioner to come and teach songs for different activities.
• Encourage each class to chant or sing on the way to and from assembly and to walk to the pulse of the music.
• Music can provide a positive lift to the day and Special Schools are particularly good at utilising this.  Capitalise on this expertise and find new ways to integrate singing into everyday school life. Choose suitable songs that signal the beginning of a PE lesson or going out to lunch. She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain when she comes, for example.  
• Use the Brain Game rhythms on the Song Bank to promote teamwork and focus. Working on these skills may be of particular use in PRU’s and other settings where children find concentration and collaboration of particular difficulty.

Whole school community requirements:

Communal Singing marks significant moments of school life

Tips to help encourage that singing marks key moments of school life:

• If the school has a special award assembly, why not commission a Sing Up Award Song from one class which is learnt by the whole school? Singing is a great way to say goodbye to Year 6 children at the end of their time in primary school. Organise a special farewell singing assembly.
• Find a song that welcomes new children to a group.  This may be particularly relevant to schools with a higher turnaround of children, such as settings working with looked after children or PRU’s. The Maori welcome song Epo I Tai Tai E, is a fun and easy song to learn and sing.  
• Use a diverse range of songs and try to keep expanding your repertoire. If your school is holding a religious ceremony then break away from singing the same hymns and teach the children songs like Oh, Happy Day, Water Song or Rivers of Babylon.

Whole school community requirements:

Pupils explore and value a diverse range of singing

Tips to encourage pupils to explore a diverse range of singing:

• Teach and learn some stick or stone passing games, which are traditional in many cultures. Way, or Way, Oh the Lion is a traditional Zulu song which incorporates a passing game.  Si Si Si, Senwa Dedende, Halima Pakasholo, Mo Li Hua are other good passing songs.
• Explore some work songs. Discuss how these songs evolved, and encourage the children to explore their history.
• Ask your Sing Up Area Leader if a gospel workshop can be booked in your area. Make use of local community musicians and artists.
• Try beatboxing! Pupils with a limited number of words can often make percussive sounds. Try to build these sounds into a rhythm and use a series of visual cards to build up a pattern. Check out the Sing Up Training Programme for courses in beatboxing!

 

To help you prepare, we’ve compiled a list of requirements for headteachers, staff, pupils and the whole school community, with tips to help you achieve a Silver or Gold Award.

The Silver Award

Headteacher requirement
Your school must endorse the Sing Up Awards

Your headteacher and the governors must endorse the decision to apply for the Sing Up Awards, and all staff should be informed that the school is applying.

Tips to gain endorsement:

• If you’re a music coordinator or singing leader, ask the headteacher and governors if you could attend a governors’ meeting to give a short report on Sing Up and the schools’ application for the Sing Up Awards.
• Request a five-minute update on the progress of your Sing Up Award at every weekly staff meeting until the process is complete. The updates will also act as a reminder for colleagues to collect and upload evidence.
• Invite members of the governing body to participate in any Sing Up training offered to the staff or pupils. Even if they don’t attend, it keeps singing and the Awards on their agenda.


Pupil requirement
Singing must occur in every class more than twice a week

Tips to encourage singing in each class:

• Encourage each teacher to sing the register rather than saying it.
• For younger children, Welcome Everybody is a song that can be used at the beginning of a session, in particular for roll calls. For older children, Name Stomp or Concentration is a rhyme with movement that features a roll call.
• The Warm-up and Stomp Canon or the Grandma Rap are good songs to energise a session.
• Try using a task-based song to help get jobs done, particularly in groups. For instance, teaching and singing a ‘tidying up’ song really helps the tidying up process to happen.
• Counting songs aid the memory for number work. Try 1-2-3-4-5 to the tune of Knees Up Mother Brown. One Two Three Four teaches forward counting, patterning and internal counting. Five Little Monkeys is a song that can help teach subtraction, One Potato can help teach counting and estimating, and Circle to the Left helps to teach moving clockwise or anti-clockwise. Multiplication tables are much easier to learn you sing them to a tune. 
• We sing slower than we speak and songs contain much repetition. Learning new words is easier through song and this can be used to great advantage in foreign language teaching. For French lesson, try A Douze.


Pupil requirement
The whole school sings together at least once a week

Tips to get the whole school to sing together at least once a week:

• Establish a singing assembly. As a singing leader, you may be responsible for this. Try to encourage all the staff to stay, join in and endorse what you are doing. They will learn new songs which they can use with their class and will see the best ways of teaching songs.
• Si Si Si is a Congolese greeting song suitable for large numbers. Or you could try Senwa Dedende, which is a round or Halima Pakasholo with call and response.
• To keep the singing assembly fun, make your assemblies interactive.
• Search the Song Bank under Religious Education for songs appropriate to the time of year, and around festivals.
• Collect songs that celebrate different traditional festivals. Log into the Sing Up site and you can save them to your Song Bank favourites. Check out Chanukah, Chanukah, Gospel Medley, Night of a Thousand Lights (Diwali), This Little Light of Mine, Apples and Honey (Jewish New Year).


Staff requirement
All staff should be encouraged to get involved in singing

Tips to encourage staff to get involved in singing:

• Teach staff a short song each week at the beginning of the staff meeting, just for five minutes. Choose a song from the Song Bank – use the performance and echo tracks to help you teach it. Ask your headteacher to endorse what you’re doing and to learn the song alongside the staff.
• Gather a collection of playground songs and share them with the playground and lunchtime supervisors. Jack Be Nimble is good for Key Stage 1, and I Like Coffee is a good playground game for Key Stage 2. Also see Singing Playgrounds.
• Assemble a collection of indoor singing games that are suitable to play when it’s too wet to go outside. Share these with teaching assistants, and lunchtime and playground supervisors. Here Sits Mousie is great for Key Stage 1 and Moses Supposes is fun for Key Stage 2. Also see Singing Playgrounds.


Staff requirement
At least two staff should be confident to lead singing

You don’t need to be a musician to lead singing, and you don’t need to read music.

Tips to enable staff to lead singing:

• Sing to children with an unforced singing quality and with obvious enjoyment, and they will be keen to copy you.
• Contact your Sing Up Area Leader to put you in touch with singing courses in your area, or to help build singing into your classroom teaching.
• Explore our free Song Bank. New songs are added every week which will help you build your classroom repertoire.


Whole school community requirement
Families and visitors must get involved in singing activities

Tips to involve families and visitors in singing activities:

• All schools are diverse – so get parents involved by inviting them to teach a song from their culture or religion.
• Finish school concerts with an audience participation song.
• Start a weekly singing session for families, before their children start school. This builds relationships for transition years between parents, teachers and children. Little Johnny Dances is a French song that has fun puppet actions, and would be a good starter for a family singing session.

Whole school community requirement
Singing must support the School Development Plan and should be included in the Self Evaluation Form

Singing can be of huge benefit to children as individuals. Involvement in singing improve creativity within school, and also has a positive impact on standards in literacy and numeracy.

Tip to ensure that singing supports the School Development Plan:

• If you’re the school music coordinator, you might consider rewriting part of your school music policy to include your involvement with Sing Up and your commitment to attaining a  Sing Up Award.


The Gold Award

Headteacher requirement
The headteacher sings with the school

Tips to encourage the headteacher to sing with the school:

• When teaching new songs to the rest of the staff (perhaps in a staff meeting or training day), encourage the headteacher to take part, and to endorse what you do.
• Suggest that, from time to time, the headteacher goes out on the playground and helps children to sing.
• Suggest that the headteacher accompanies the children when they take part in singing festivals and Sing Up events.


Pupil requirement
Children should develop reflective and critical skills about singing

Tips to help children develop reflective and critical skills about singing:

• Try recording or videoing a class or school performance, and then show it to the children for their analysis.
• During the teaching of a song, ask your pupils to give their opinions about certain decisions that need to be made. Song of Youth is a Chinese folksong and is ideal to raise questions and discussion.
• Try performing a song in different ways. Ask a group of pupils to listen and choose the performance they consider the most effective.


Pupil requirement
Pupils sometimes lead singing

Tips to encourage pupils to lead singing:

• Nominate pupil singing leaders who can help younger pupils to play and sing playground game and songs.
• Suggest that each class has a lucky dip bag of songs. As a reward for hard work, or during Golden Time, a selected pupil pulls out a lucky dip song and leads the song with the class.
• Have a pupil who is confidence in their singing to lead the class in a known song.


Pupil requirement
There is group singing for each child in the school everyday

Tips to enable daily group singing for every child:

• Use songs to enhance and inform other subject areas. Paddy Works on the Railway can be used as a part of a history lesson on the Victorian era. Try Chocoholics or Alice the Camel in maths, London’s Burning for history, Alouette for French. 
• Search the Song Bank by curriculum area to find songs that tie in with the themes and ideas in your lessons.
• Group activities can be assisted by singing together. The Grand Old Duke of York is a great song to help kids find a beat when they walk together. Songs can be sung on the bus on the way to swimming, or any school trips.


Pupil requirement
Children take part in choosing repertoire, and in finding and creating their own songs

Tips to encourage children to take part in choosing songs:

• Ask the children to learn singing, skipping and playground games from their parents, grandparents and relatives.
• Encourage pupils to make up their own playground songs and games.
• Ask the class to take a well-known tune and create new words to use in class situations.


Pupil requirement
Children can sing in a range of ways, such as solos, playgrounds, groups and choirs

Tips to encourage different ways of singing:

• Many singing games give children the opportunity to sing a phrase or two by themselves as part of a game. If started young enough, this becomes the norm for children in the music lesson and in the playground. Here I Come and Witch Witch are fantastic examples of easy songs where children can feel confident singing phrases by themselves. Make sure you check out the Singing Playgrounds.
• If you haven't started a regular school choir, this is the time to begin. Contact your Sing Up Area Leader and ask for advice.


Pupil requirement
Children and staff create new original music with their voices

Tips to enable children and staff to create new original music with their voices:

• Ask your Sing Up Area Leader if there is a songwriting or improvisation course for singing leaders in your area.
• Invite younger pupils to create new words, rhythms and breaks to songs – even suggest new verses.
• Very young children can improvise snippets of songs as they play. If the staff who play with them also improvise, it encourages the practice to continue.
• Music software is available that allows children to compose songs on computers – this might be a more accessible route into music and singing for certain pupils.


Staff requirement (teaching and non-teaching)
Two or more people to lead singing at least twice a week

Tips to encourage staff to lead singing:

• Singing leaders can build a school song repertoire with the help of the Sing Up Song Bank and the Sing Up magazine.
• Further musical knowledge can be built up through continuing professional development. Contact your Area Leader.


Staff requirement (teaching and non-teaching)
All staff are involved in singing at least once a week

Tips to encourage staff to get involved in singing at least once a week:

• Encourage all staff to stay and sing in a whole school assembly.
• Ask the headteacher if you can teach a new song to all staff at the beginning of a staff meeting.
• Try and book a continuing professional development training session during part of a training day for all staff.
• Invite members of staff to help with school performances.


Whole school community requirements
Singing takes place across and beyond the music curriculum

Tips to make sure singing takes place across and beyond the music curriculum:

• Get involved in primary school singing festivals run by your music support service or specialist performing arts college.
• Encourage your children to join local choirs after school and to attend holiday singing clubs and camps.
• Take pupils out of school to perform in local care homes or community centres.
• Create a special day or week that focuses on a certain subject, theme or idea that inspires music and singing.


Whole school community requirements
Singing energises a range of everyday school activities and routines

Tips to ensure that singing energises different activities:

• Sing on the bus to swimming lessons or other visits. Create laminated song cards to prompt teachers who escort class visits. Three Native American Chants is a good song to introduce on bus journeys.
• Invite a local Guide or Scout leader or commissioner to come and teach songs for different activities.
• Encourage each class to chant or sing on the way to and from assembly and to walk to the pulse of the music.


Whole school community requirements
Communal Singing marks significant moments of school life

Tips to help encourage that singing marks key moments of school life:

• If the school has a special award assembly, why not commission a Sing Up Award Song from one class which is learnt by the whole school?
• Singing is a great way to say goodbye to Year 6 children at the end of their time in primary school. Organise a special farewell singing assembly.


Whole school community requirements
Pupils explore and value a diverse range of singing

Tips to encourage pupils to explore a diverse range of singing:

• Teach and learn some stick or stone passing games, which are traditional in many cultures. Way, or Way, Oh the Lion is a traditional Zulu song which incorporates a passing game.  Si Si Si, Senwa Dedende, Halima Pakasholo, Mo Li Hua are other good passing songs.
• Explore some work songs. Discuss how these songs evolved, and encourage the children to explore their history.
• Ask your Sing Up Area Leader if a gospel workshop can be booked in your area. Make use of local community musicians and artists.

Singing is fun and has lots of real benefits for individuals and organisations – physical, social and developmental.

Singing can:

• bring a school together and create a unified experience for students and staff
• mark significant moments in school life: holidays, festivals, summer events, group welcomings and farewells
• help the school to work with parents and the wider community
• improve learning and encourage pupils to sing, which can enhance their enjoyment of other subjects.

For the whole school, singing provides a creative outlet and builds a greater sense of community and social cohesion.

For individuals, singing can build confidence, foster individuality, improve social skills and create more positive attitudes.

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