I teach music in a small primary school. It makes me very sad when adults tell me their teacher told them they could not sing. As far as I am concerned, everyone has a different voice and everyone's voice is for singing with!(I demonstrate this by explaining that I have a deep voice for a lady and that lots of the teachers and children are able to sing much "higher" than me but it doesn't matter a bit). I don't have a choir, because I do not believe in ruling people out.Every child takes part in performances because I believe that everyone's contribution is valuable. We all work hard to learn the songs and do our best every time, but I stress that mistakes happen in any performance because it is live!
If someone is not accurately pitch matching every note then that is because we are all still developing our voices, in just the same way that we learn everything else and that's all part of the school experience.We are showing what we have learned to do so far. I stress the need to warm up (We have lots of fun!)and to stand properly and breathe properly- right from the reception year. I introduce songs / games with 2 notes at first and then gradually add on as we learn to pitch match. At the moment every child in reception is accurately pitch matching in songs with a limited number of notes and we are very proud of our voices. This might seem a bit twee, but hey ho!