| Summary: | Composing with children is a complex area that many generalist primary-school teachers in
England report finding challenging or intimidating. This article draws on existing literature
relating to composing in schools, child-centred learning, cultural capital, and classroom
pedagogy, to situate and discuss a longitudinal research project exploring composing with
primary-aged children. The article focusses on one of eight schools involved in the project, in
which children worked with a professional composer alongside their regular classroom teacher
to compose operatic scenes to accompany the epic poem, Beowulf. The project utilised a
collaborative action research framework, featuring researcher observations of the six composing
sessions, semi-structured interviews and reflections with the teacher and composer, and a focus
group with the children. The findings highlight seven themes relating to children’s
understandings of the composing process, which are theorised into conceptualisations of
musical knowledge. The article concludes by tracing some of the international implications for
children composing in primary-school contexts.
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