Building Your Elementary Choral Program

I teach a 5th and 6th grade chorus class, and a 4th grade chorus class, that are both elective pullout classes during the day. When I first started in my current position, there were 12 students total in the 5th and 6th grade combined chorus and 15 in the 4th grade chorus- 27 total singers. That number has grown to 116 total this year (that's 80% of the students in those grades in my school). If you're trying to revitalize a dwindling chorus program, or coming into a new one, here are my top tips for building a thriving elementary choir program.

1. Personal invitations

I've found inviting students to join chorus individually is much more effective than sticking to just the general invitation letters. Of course I still send home those letters and make general announcements to my classes, but I get a lot more students to join by talking to them individually and asking them why they haven't signed up yet. When a student feels individually wanted/ included they are much more likely to decide to join (and much less likely to forget before the deadline)!

2. Up the ante

This may go against common sense but the first thing I did to turn the program around after my first semester in the position was to add auditions. Whereas before the chorus class had been open to anyone who signed up, after my first semester I announced that students were now required to "audition" before they would be accepted! This changed the students' view of the class from a "get out of class" time to a meaningful, high-caliber, desirable ensemble, and I instantly saw an increase in signups.

3. Get staff on board

This obviously takes time, but I think building respect for the program among the other teachers, the principal, and other staff has been very important for building the chorus program. As much as I can talk to the students directly and try to promote it myself, the reality in elementary school is the homeroom teachers see the students and talk to them a lot more often than I can, so their attitude towards the class, and their enthusiasm for getting students to sign up, make a huge difference in signups. The homeroom teachers who remind their students regularly to turn in the form, who encourage the ones that are on the fence, and who talk up how awesome it is are always the ones with the highest participation rate year after year.

4. Make it successful

I know we all know this but students will want to join something that they view as successful- success breeds success. The hard part is how! For me I think the main keys to success have been:

• Combining chorus classes for rehearsals to make larger classes- when I first started, the 5th and 6th graders rehearsed separately. One grade learned part 1, the other learned part 2, they would have a couple of combined rehearsals before the concert, and perform together. As much as from a management perspective it can be intimidating, for upper elementary/ middle school age there is safety in numbers. Putting them together in one class for rehearsal made the students feel instantly more successful because they were each singing more confidently with more singers around them in rehearsal.
• Choosing appropriate repertoire- finding songs that are an appropriate level of challenge so they can sound good while sounding impressive is key to building success.
• Choosing relatable/ exciting repertoire- the students have to enjoy the songs and want to sing them for them to tell their friends they should join too! That doesn't mean only pop songs by any stretch, but it does mean finding ways to hook students and get them excited about the music.

This is just beginning to scratch the surface of this topic, and there is certainly a lot more to be said about each of the points above (maybe in future articles?) but these are the key points I have identified over the years as having the biggest impact on building my elementary choirs. If you've been through a similar experience, I would love to hear your top suggestions for what you have found has made the biggest difference for you, and if you have any questions, please leave those in the comments as well so we can all help each other! Want to peruse my other elementary choir articles? You can read them all here.