Music

Musical Opportunities at St Paul's

St Paul’s Church of England Primary School’s music department is highly regarded for both vocal and instrumental accomplishments.  We enjoy playing and singing music from a wide range of genres, including and enthusing children from the very youngest to the eldest members of our school.

Our school choir has gained an excellent reputation over the years.  We regularly receive invites and accept engagements to perform in and around the local area.  The choir members range from age 7 to 11 and they enjoy singing a variety of music from choral works to popular favourites from our school worship and songs from the shows.   The choir have performed locally in our community, such as All Saints Church in Hereford and for Christmas, we took part in Bishops of Bluecoat Hereford School's Christmas concert at The Cathedral.  The choir have also gone further afield, taking part in Young Voices at the Birmingham LG Arena this January.  We also enjoy singing at our school events and church services too. 

Over the past decade, the choir has been privileged to take part in concerts with Hereford Police Male Voice Choir, Evensong at Hereford Cathedral, numerous joint concerts with Hereford Cathedral School, the Three Choirs Plus festival and the Queen’s Jubilee Diamond Day celebrations.  We enjoy our close links with St Paul’s Church and have enjoyed leading Sunday morning worship.  Our choir was also chosen as the only primary school to sing at the inauguration of the new NMiTE University in Hereford Cathedral. 

Whole-school singing is valued highly at St Paul’s.  In recent years, our anti-bullying films have achieved national prominence on social media.  We have also received a visit from CBeebies’ Andy Day (along with his band, the Odd Socks), who listened to us performing one of our anti-bullying songs.  It has been fantastic to make recordings as part of the “iSingPop” project and to receive a visit from the Sunshine Radio team.

Children have numerous opportunities to develop their skills in music and drama during their time at St Paul’s.  Every year, the children put on an Infant Nativity, a Year 3/4 production and children who play a musical instrument are given the chance to showcase their skills and illuminate their talents during our class assemblies. Class-led worship regularly includes singing, dance and drama too.  The children take part in ‘Songs and Praise’ assemblies every week, where part-singing is encouraged.  Harvest, Christmas and Easter celebrations always include hymn-singing, and our orchestra also have led worship and had the chance to perform for the rest of the school. 

Musical opportunities are encouraged from an early age and talents are nurtured through the extra-curricular activities run by music specialists on the school staff.  A high proportion of our children receive peripatetic instrumental lessons during school time on instruments such as piano, guitar, drums, violin, cello, flute, oboe and trumpet and also individual vocal lessons. 

Our instrumentalists have regular opportunities throughout the year to perform to friends and families in school music concerts and events.  Performing highlights in recent years have included giving a recital at Hereford Sixth Form College, putting on a joint children’s concert with Hereford Concert Band, and playing at St Michael’s Hospice.  At the Hereford Festival, our string orchestra received the prestigious ‘Elgar Award’ in 2011 and in 2013. Some members also played in a special concert with The English Symphony Orchestra. In 2025, our orchestra took home a Gold Award in the Mixed Ensemble category at Hereford Performing Arts Festival.