Hello! My name is Jonathan Coy, and I am CEO of HeadteacherChat™. I am delighted to have been given access to Sparkyard, from Out of the Ark Music, to see what they have on offer to support schools and I thought you would be interested to know what I discovered!  

Read the full review below....

What is Sparkyard?

Sparkyard  provides a whole-school, unified approach to singing and music. It puts the power of singing into the hands of everyone in your school and allows people of all confidence levels to harness the power of singing in every area of school life. Sparkyard is optimized for mobile, tablet, desktop and whiteboard so can be used in a way that suits you.

Watch a video: What is Sparkyard?

Sparkyard is a transformational tool for primary education and will allow every teacher in your school to harness the power of singing and music.

• With over 1,000 songs you will find a song for every occasion and discover thousands of reasons to sing!
• Benefit from thousands of ideas, activities, and teaching tips to help you use music to support learning in every curriculum area.
• You can choose from an extensive range of ready-to-go, topic- and values-based assemblies, helping you to promote wellbeing and school community.

Much of Sparkyard’s development was informed by the Singing Schools project, a research project we undertook with Professor Susan Hallam, we worked with 24 primary schools to assess the impact that fully integrating singing and music into the school curriculum could have on a range of measures including wellbeing, social inclusion, and pupil and teacher confidence, as well as academic attainment across the general and music curriculums. You can read about the results here - https://www.outoftheark.co.uk/singing-school-project/

“It’s now become the backbone of my teaching this term. I love that I can find songs on almost any topic. The lesson plans are fast becoming indispensable – they provide a great starting point for my planning – and, most importantly, I can hear the children singing songs all over our school.” – Ruth Coles, Head of Junior Music, Blackheath High School

“I really like Sparkyard, it is great that you can find everything in one place. I teach music so I am more than happy using it, it is easy enough for non-specialists to use in everyday teaching.” Headteacher, St Bernadette’s Catholic Primary School

What does HeadteacherChat™ think?

• We like how engaging the resources are, and how easy it is to find them, and to plan your music lessons.
• We like the fact that Sparkyard provides the structure for so many lessons, giving teachers more time to focus on teaching singing and music.  
• We like the fact that the lessons are fully adaptable, allowing schools to add their individuality to them and to cater for the needs of their pupils.
• We were impressed with the sheer amount of ready-to-go, topic- and values-based assemblies, helping you to promote wellbeing and school community.

Benefits:

• Sparkyard contains a vast array of pre-planned interactive music and singing lessons.
• Sparkyard brings learning to life with engaging lessons and resources.
• Teachers can plan all their music lessons using the platform.
• Sparkyard provides a whole-school, unified approach to singing and music.

Sparkyard has the HeadteacherChat™ Stamp of Approval because:

‘Sparkyard is an amazingly easy to use and adaptable teaching platform with an impressive number of lessons and tips for teachers to tap into. It’s a great way for teachers to plan their music and singing lessons.’

  Jonathan Coy CEO, HeadteacherChat™. February 2022

To find out more information go to:  

Out of the Ark website – https://outoftheark.com

Sparkyard website – https://sparkyard.com

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