As part of the year 8 music curriculum, pupils spent the last half term learning about Gamelan, which is music from Indonesia. Exploring its cultural roots and musical essence, we collectively learned and performed a piece using glockenspiels, albeit pretending they were authentic Gamelan instruments. This Monday, Inspire works visited Belmont and brought with them a full 30-piece Gamelan set from Indonesia.

All of Year 8 had a session with Mike Simpson, a leading Gamelan player who was taught how to play by a Prince in Bali. The pupils really enjoyed getting to develop their Gamelan skills on authentic instruments, and it was fantastic to see how much knowledge they had retained from our lessons last term.