Orchestrating your Extra-Curricular Music Provision

With the summer holidays on the horizon and end of term productions in full swing, you might be thinking about what your extra-curricular music provision looks like for September. Clubs are a fantastic opportunity to engage pupils in music outside of the classroom, so we’ve pulled together some stress-free, low budget music clubs for your offering. Clubs can be an added bonus to meet multiple areas of the National Curriculum for Music so we’ve outlined where these suggestions could support ensuring your provision meets the National Curriculum, inside and outside of the classroom!

Why are music clubs important?

The new Core Enrichment Offer in the DfE’s's 2026 Schools White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving aims to ensure that all children have access to a wide range of experiences beyond the classroom, helping them develop new skills, interests and talents. Music clubs are a great way for schools to support this, giving your pupils opportunities to be creative, work with others, perform and build confidence- really thinking about holistic development and meeting whole child objectives outside of the classroom. Have a look below at some possible options for engaging pupils in the musical life of your school!

  1. School Choir

A school choir is an excellent way to build a community across year groups through the medium of singing. Pupils can get a real sense of achievement from a rehearsal process with an end goal in sight, such as a concert, to celebrate their hard work. It’s also a really valuable way for pupils to build confidence singing together, without having to perform by themselves.

National Curriculum Links:

  • Use voices expressively and creatively.
  • Sing with increasing accuracy, fluency and expression.
  • Perform confidently to an audience.

 

  1. Film Composer Club

With television and film so prevalent in the lives of young pupils, what better way to engage them by composing their own soundtracks?! Using silent films and a variety of untuned percussion or other instruments lurking in your music cupboard, this is a low-budget way to engage children in improvisation and compositional techniques. This club could also get pupils thinking about the power of music in conveying action and emotion for characters and settings in films. You could use known appropriate films or pupils could record their own, depending on how creative you want to get!

National Curriculum Links:

  • Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes.
  • Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.
  • Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory.
  • Understand how music can communicate ideas, moods and emotions.
  • Perform and evaluate musical ideas.

 

  1. Glockenspiel Club

We believe there should be no barriers to instrumental learning, and offering an instrumental club is the perfect way for pupils to develop instrumental techniques. At Get Set 4 Music, we offer a 12-week Glockenspiel unit, which you could easily use as club material if not already embedded in your curriculum. Glockenspiels are a really accessible way to develop an understanding of western notation and rhythm. Showcasing pupils’ progress in a concert at the end of a term is also a great performance experience for pupils!

National Curriculum Links:

  • Play tuned instruments musically.
  • Use and understand staff notation.
  • Play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts.
  • Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory.

 

  1. Music Technology Club

Using Music Technology is a great way for pupils to consolidate their understanding of the key elements of music in the National Curriculum (Composing, Listening and Performing). As we prepare pupils for this new wave of technology, using free music technology software could be an excellent, budget-free club to offer. Resources such as Chrome Music Lab, BandLab or GarageBand are all excellent platforms to allow budding composers to experiment with sound. Your pupils could even present an album of their compositions! 

National Curriculum Links:

  • Improvise and compose music for a range of purposes.
  • Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds.
  • Use technology to record and organise musical ideas.
  • Explore pitch, duration, tempo and texture.

 

  1. Music and Art Club

Combining two art forms is a great way to encourage pupils to develop their creativity, and test new skills. In this club, pupils could respond to music through the form of art. It’s an excellent way to form cross-curricular links by choosing pieces linked to topics in your wider curriculum. Using resources you already have from your art cupboard, combined with the hundreds of pieces in our ‘Music to My Ears’ folder in ‘Awesome Stuff’ you have a wonderfully creative club, completely free!

National Curriculum Links:

  • Listen with concentration and understanding.
  • Record musical ideas using symbols and graphic notation.
  • Respond creatively to music.

 

  1. Percussion Club

A percussion club could be an excellent way for students to develop their understanding of rhythm. Through creating rhythms, layering different rhythms and instruments, pupils can really get a good grasp of pulse, beats and layers of sound that come together when multiple musicians play. You can use unpitched percussion from your music cupboard, or even use body percussion to develop unique rhythms! ‘Call and Response’ activities in this club could really get pupils developing listening skills. This is really valuable in supporting pupils' development as musicians and helping them understand what it means to be part of a wider musical group.

National Curriculum Links:

  • Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds.
  • Play and perform in ensemble contexts.
  • Develop an understanding of pulse and rhythm.
  • Perform with increasing confidence and control.

 

  1. Music in Nature Club

Music doesn’t have to be limited to pre-recorded songs and sounds. Exploring sound in the environment is an excellent way to get children thinking about music in an abstract format. Listening to birdsong, pitches of car horns, chatter in the playground- layers of sound that make up a school- it’s a great way to develop listening skills. Take your pupils on a sound walk! Or, if the weather is against you, you’ll find lots of nature and sound-based activities in our ‘Musical Families’ area, which is free for all to engage in!

National Curriculum Links:

  • Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds.
  • Listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory.
  • Explore timbre, texture and structure.
  • Perform and evaluate musical ideas.

 

8. Music and Movement Club

Through this club, pupils can respond physically to music through movement, storytelling and simple dance activities. It’s a great way to combine physical movement with pulse and rhythm. Possible activities could include finding the pulse to music, or even getting creative and choreographing sequences to pieces of music! Pupils can explore emotions and expression through music; an additional way to respond to music without relying on spoken word.

National Curriculum Links:

  • Use voices expressively and creatively.
  • Listen with concentration and understanding.
  • Respond to pulse, rhythm, tempo and dynamics through movement.
  • Perform expressively and imaginatively.

 

9. Listening and Discovery Club

This could be an excellent club for children seeking some peace and quiet after school, looking for immersion in music to wind down. Through this club, you can introduce different genres of music, themes linked to your wider curriculum, or have a composer of focus, to really help children form connections between history, culture and music. An excellent way for children to connect with one another, but also for you to connect with your pupils…why not share the music that you love with pupils? Pupils can bring suggestions to share each week with one another, too! Our ‘Music to My Ears’  area in ‘Awesome Stuff’ has hundreds of listening pieces that you can use for this club.

 

10.  Music and Storytelling Club

In this club, pupils can use music, sound effects, singing and movement to bring stories to life. They might create soundscapes for familiar tales, invent character themes or use instruments and voices to represent events within a story. It’s an excellent way to support language acquisition and broaden vocabulary by connecting stories to music. 

National Curriculum Links:

  • Use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes.
  • Experiment with, create, select and combine sounds.
  • Listen with concentration and understanding.
  • Improvise and compose simple pieces of music.

 

Don’t forget you can record your extra-curricular provision through our ‘clubs and performances’ tool. Through this, you can record clubs, monitor attendance through our register feature and pull data using our ‘my reporting’ tool to see who’s engaging in your extra-curricular music provision. These tools should be particularly handy when thinking about preparing to evidence the new Core Enrichment Offer that is expected to come into action.  If you need any help with these tools, or have any questions on your extra-curricular provision, please get in touch, we’re always happy to help and show you around!