Teach weekly
Use the route as a dedicated 30-45 minute music slot with a clear lesson flow.
Year 2 Music Curriculum Map
Structure
How Year 2 music is structured (Blues focus)
The Standard Curriculum for Year 2 is taught through three terms of six sessions. Pupils spend the whole year in one sound world: Blues.
Each lesson uses around eight short, classroom-ready activities that keep returning to the same core skills: warming up, listening, pulse and rhythm, notation, performance and composition.
- Vocal warm-ups and Hear My Train Is Coming anchor the year.
- Blues concepts, band roles and artist stories build style knowledge.
- Musical Rainbow, Rainbow Dots and Read That Rhythm connect notation to sound.
- Weekly Drum Routine, Blues Dance, karaoke and lyric-writing keep the style practical.
Delivery
Weekly lessons or shorter "bursts"
Year 2 can be delivered as a weekly music lesson or split into shorter musical bursts across the timetable.
The Blues route still remains coherent because each short activity sits inside the same mapped year journey and keeps returning to the class track.
Teach in bursts
Split the same mapped content into songs, listening games, movement, vocabulary and practice moments across the week.
Keep the map
Whether lessons are weekly or split up, the underlying route still gives leaders a coherent progression story.
Standard Curriculum view
What happens across the Year 2 Standard Curriculum?
The Year 2 Standard Curriculum overview shows how familiar activity types are remixed across the 18 sessions while the Blues content, artists and notation work gradually step up.
Pupils build the sound of Blues from the inside: singing, moving, listening, reading, drumming and finally composing their own lyric ideas.
Vocal warm-ups, song bank & Hear My Train Is Coming
Every lesson starts and ends in the Blues sound world, so pupils know the groove, structure and feel of the anchor song.
- Vocal Warm Up and graded Vocal Warm Up Songs
- Perform: Hear My Train Is Coming
- Blues Dance, Blues Karaoke and Create your own Lyrics Blues
Blues concepts, band skills & artists
Short Learn clips build knowledge about Blues, bands, chords, dynamics and artists a little at a time.
- What is Blues Music? and Piano in Blues
- What is a chord?, dynamics and pulse
- Ma Rainey, Robert Johnson and Chicago Blues
Pulse, rhythm & Weekly Drum Routine
Beat, rhythm and desk drumming keep the Blues groove physical and help pupils stay coordinated in time.
- Skies and Valleys
- Find the Pulse, Rhythmic Pyramid and Rhythm Clapping
- Weekly Drum Routine on the desk
Musical Rainbow, Rainbow Dots & rhythm reading
Pitch and notation tasks connect C, D and E on the stave to simple classroom music and rhythm-reading challenges.
- Musical Rainbow notes C, D and E
- Rainbow Dots 1-3
- Read That Rhythm levels
Listening games, Blues karaoke & lyric-writing
Musical Detective, karaoke and lyric-writing tasks move pupils from recognising the style to creating within it.
- Musical Detective listening games
- Blues karaoke and performance tasks
- Create your own Lyrics Blues
Explore the curriculum in your school
Open the pre-curated schemes, preview the activity flow and see whether the route fits your timetable.