Thirlmere School's band began in 2002 as a creative arts program for students. The school has an established band and also a beginner's band. The beginner's band starts in Term 1 of each year, helping students to develop the skills needed to move on to the established band at the beginning of Term 4 each year.
We have a specialist music teacher who comes to our school to teach students how to play their chosen instrument and how to play as part of a band. The band term runs for 8 weeks during each term at school during the school day. Students play in small groups and as a whole band.
The established band play a variety of songs are always building their repertoire. The established band plays at Monday morning assemblies accompanying the students when they sing the National Anthem and school song. They play at a range of events throughout the year like the Wollondilly music festival, ANZAC Day ceremony, NAIDOC Week assembly and the school extravaganza. The band also performs at school celebrations such as presentation days and gold medal ceremonies.
Research studies have found that "learning a musical instrument uses a huge number of parts and networks in the brain at the same time, and at this time researchers have been unable to find any other activity that works the brain in quite the same way. Interestingly, this workout results in the improvement of every child’s cognitive capacity, meaning they can learn better, faster and with greater independence." Find out more at Yamaha backstage.
Our band members are therefore not only learning a musical instrument, but they are also improving their language learning, literacy and reading skills, working memory, phonemic awareness, complex spatial skills, impulse control, auditory processing (this protects our brains from aging), comprehension skills and their social skills. Students really enjoy playing and having good time while they learn a musical instrument, play at performances and improve the skills discussed here.