How Year 3 music is structured (Jazz focus)
In Kidstrument, Year 3 music is taught through three terms of six sessions (18 in total), just like Years 1 and 2. In Lower KS2, pupils now spend the year in one sound world: 1920s jazz and swing.
Each Year 3 lesson typically uses around nine short, classroom-ready activities. Instead of one long task, pupils move through quick segments that return to the same core skills again and again: warming up, moving in time, pulse and rhythm, notation, chords, listening and performance.
Across Autumn, Spring and Summer, most sessions include:
- Vocal warm-ups and a 1920s jazz song – using the Vocal Warm Up series and the class track New Orleans Stomp (first as a Watch Song: Jazz, then Perform Song: Jazz and finally karaoke and music video versions).
- Jazz dance and movement – Dance: Jazz 1–4, so pupils feel swing and groove in their whole body, not just in their hands.
- Pulse, rhythm and desk drumming – through Rhythmic Pyramid: Pulse , Weekly Drum Routine and Copy Cat (Blues and Jazz versions).
- Notation and chords – “What is a stave?”, “What are barlines?”, treble clef, notes C, D and E on the stave and chord work via Harmony: What is a Chord? and Quickfire Chords.
- Listening, jazz history and instruments – Skies and Valleys, Music Detective: Jazz, Critical Listening: New Orleans Jazz and short “Learn” clips on Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Sydney Bechet, Fats Waller, Josephine Baker, James P. Johnson, and roles of guitar, bass, keyboard, drums and vocals in jazz.
You can also run the whole-class Ukulele Course alongside New Orleans Stomp, so Year 3 meets the Key Stage 2 expectation to learn a tuned instrument, while the jazz sessions cover singing, listening, notation and ensemble work.
Weekly lessons or shorter “bursts”
Across the school, Kidstrument sessions can be delivered as:
- Traditional lessons (for example, one 30–45 minute slot per week), or
- De-linearised “bursts” across the timetable — a song before registration, a listening game after break, a short movement or vocabulary task later in the day.
Because the curriculum is built from small, focused activities, it adapts to the reality of primary timetables while still giving you a coherent learning journey to show inspectors.
What happens across the 18 Year 3 music sessions?
This overview is designed for headteachers, music leads and subject leaders who want to see the big picture of the Year 3 music curriculum. It summarises how often each strand is revisited and how it develops from Autumn to Summer, so it’s clear how pupils make progress through the New Orleans Stomp jazz year in Lower KS2.
Each of the 18 sessions blends around nine short activities drawn from a wider bank (for example, vocal warm-ups, dance, Rhythmic Pyramid, Weekly Drum Routine, sight-reading, chords and listening games). The activity types stay familiar so lessons are easy to run, while the 1920s jazz content, artists, notation and chord work gradually step up in challenge.
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Vocal warm-ups, song bank & New Orleans Stomp
Every lesson begins and ends in the same jazz song.
Across all 18 sessions, pupils regularly meet:
- Vocal Warm Up 1–5 – short routines to switch voices on, build confidence and practise pitch-matching and breathing.
- Watch Song: Jazz (introducing New Orleans Stomp) followed by Perform Song: Jazz, then Music Video: Jazz and finally Perform Song: Jazz (Karaoke).
- Dance: Jazz 1–4, which links movement, phrase shape and groove directly to New Orleans Stomp.
By the end of Year 3, pupils have sung and moved to New Orleans Stomp many times, so they know its structure, can perform with expression and are ready for small-group or solo moments if you choose.
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Jazz concepts, history & instruments
Understanding what makes 1920s jazz and swing sound like jazz.
Short “Learn” and “Watch” segments across the three terms cover:
- What is Jazz? and early clips on swing, improvisation and the idea of a jazz band, linked to the New Orleans Stomp project.
- Who is Louis Armstrong?, Who is King Oliver?, Who is Sydney Bechet?, Who is Fats Waller?, Who is Josephine Baker? and Who is James P Johnson?.
- Guitar in Jazz, Bass in Jazz, Keyboard in Jazz, Drums in Jazz and Vocals in Jazz – focusing on the role of each instrument.
- Critical Listening: New Orleans Jazz and Music Detective: Jazz 1–5, where pupils listen for which instrument is playing, how parts layer up and how dynamics change.
Knowledge builds gradually: by the end of the year, pupils can name key jazz musicians, describe what the instruments are doing, and link this directly to New Orleans Stomp and other jazz they hear.
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Pulse, rhythm, Copy Cat & Weekly Drum Routine
Keeping the New Orleans Stomp groove steady.
Every session features some form of beat or rhythm work, for example:
- Rhythmic Pyramid: Pulse 1–3 – feeling and counting steady beats in different patterns, linked to the swing feel of New Orleans Stomp.
- Weekly Drum Routine 1–2 – using the desk as a drum kit to develop two-hand coordination and timekeeping.
- Copy Cat – Blues and Copy Cat – Jazz – echoing and then adapting short rhythmic and melodic ideas in call-and-response.
- Skies and Valleys 1–3 – a pitch direction game that also reinforces listening precision.
Over the 18 sessions, this strand steadily moves pupils from simply following the beat to keeping a reliable internal pulse and starting to think like a band member in an ensemble.
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Stave notation, clefs & Quickfire Chords
Reading from the stave and hearing how chords work in jazz.
Year 3 has a clear, progressive notation and harmony sequence:
- Learn: What is a Stave?, What are Barlines? and What are Clefs? – setting up how written music is organised.
- Sight Reading: Stave, Treble Clef, Note C, then Sight Reading: Note D and finally Sight Reading: Note E, plus “Long and Short Notes – C and D”.
- Harmony: What is a Chord? and Quickfire Chords: Variations #1–3 – hearing and identifying chord shapes, which underpins later harmony work in KS2.
- Percussive Clef and How to Draw a Clef for practical, step-by-step drawing skills.
Because these appear throughout Autumn, Spring and Summer, pupils see and use notation and chords many times, not just in a one-off “theory lesson”, and can connect what they read and hear directly to New Orleans Stomp and other jazz pieces they meet.
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Listening games, ensemble work & whole-class ukulele
From spotting missing parts to playing a tuned instrument.
Throughout Year 3, listening, ensemble and instrumental skills are woven together:
- Music Detective: Jazz 1–5 – spotting which instrument is missing, or what has changed between repetitions.
- Perform Song: Jazz (Karaoke) – end-of-year performances of New Orleans Stomp where pupils can focus on dynamics, expression and stage presence.
- Ukulele Course – short lessons on how to hold the ukulele, name the strings, pluck, strum and play chords C, Am, F and G, plus Level 1 exercises.
By the end of the year, pupils can listen with concentration, describe what they hear in 1920s jazz, read and perform simple patterns, and begin to accompany songs on a tuned instrument in line with KS2 expectations.
Across the 18 sessions, a typical Year 3 jazz lesson uses around nine short activities
in this kind of order:
1) Vocal Warm Up (1–5)
2) Dance: Jazz (1–4)
3) Learn: short jazz concept / history / instrument clip
4) Rhythmic Pyramid: Pulse or Copy Cat (Blues / Jazz)
5) Weekly Drum Routine (1–2) or another rhythm booster
6) Sight Reading: stave / clef / notes C–E or Quickfire Chords
7) Skies and Valleys or Music Detective: Jazz
8) Perform Song: Jazz (New Orleans Stomp, full or in sections)
9) Optional extension: ukulele exercise, vocabulary task or quick retrieval game.
Individual sessions may adjust one or two slots, but overall this gives a clearly sequenced,
inspectable pathway through singing, listening, notation, rhythm, chords and ensemble playing at Lower
KS2.
Extra KS2 tools available to Year 3
These KS2 music activities are not tied to a single session in the map. They are available throughout the year as quick, repeatable tasks you can drop into jazz lessons, assemblies or short “bursts” of music time to support the Year 3 music curriculum.
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Find the Words & Find the Family (KS2)
Retrieval practice for vocabulary and instruments.
Packs such as General KS2, Pitch, Texture, Rhythm, Tempo, Dynamics, Band Instruments, Orchestra, Brass Band and World Instruments are all variations of Find the Words , while Find the Family games focus on brass, stringed, percussion and woodwind families.
- Use as starters or plenaries to revisit KS2 vocabulary from New Orleans Stomp lessons.
- Drop into cover lessons or non-specialist sessions as low-prep retrieval tasks.
- Support reading, spelling and recall of key musical words and instrument names.
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Match & Order activities
Short quizzes on symbols, pitch, tempo and dynamics.
KS2 Match and Order activities cover core theory: Match: Classroom Percussion Instruments, Clef Names, Dynamics Symbols, Notes on the Piano, Orchestral Families / Instruments, Tempo Words, World Instruments, Symbols and Instruments; and Order tasks for dynamics, pitch, rests by duration, tempo and time signatures.
- Ideal for quick checks of understanding after a jazz lesson.
- Great for homework-style tasks or independent work at the end of a unit.
- Help pupils link what they see in New Orleans Stomp notation and performances to wider musical concepts.
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Workbooks, Professor Duncan & ukulele practice
Recording learning and extending notation and instrumental skills.
Workbooks such as Staves, Lines and Spaces; Treble Clef and Bass Clef; Treble/Bass Clef Notes; Notes and Rests; Musical Alphabet and Solfeg; Accidentals; Simple Time Signatures; Music Symbols; Musical Instruments; Great Staff and Musical Signs sit alongside Professor Duncan Music Theory and the Ukulele Course .
- Model notation on the board then let pupils complete small written tasks.
- Capture evidence of understanding for subject review or inspection.
- Use ukulele exercises (Level 1 and chord lessons) as an additional practical strand alongside the New Orleans Stomp jazz project, when timetables allow.
These resources are available when you want them, rather than being a compulsory checklist for every child in every lesson.