Delia Derbyshire Day (22nd - 29th Nov 2025)

Delia Derbyshire Day - Website Banner 2025

It’s time to shine a spotlight on one of the most remarkable and under-celebrated figures in music history: Delia Derbyshire. As the team behind Musician of the Month, we’re passionate about bringing fresh, inspiring musical stories into your classrooms, and Delia’s story is full of possibilities for engagement, experimentation and empowerment.

Who was Delia Derbyshire?

Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001) was an English composer and sound-engineer who worked at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

• Perhaps her most famous achievement: her electronic realisation of the theme for Doctor Who (1963) — a landmark piece of electronic music history.

• Her work was pioneering: she used everyday objects, tape-loops, filters and oscillators to create sound worlds that stretched what was possible at the time.

• Because of the era and the context, her contribution has often been overlooked, but her influence today spans electronic music, sound design, STEM/STEAM connections, and creative pedagogy.

  
  

In short: Delia is exactly the kind of figure we want our classes to know about - someone who broke barriers, combined creativity and technology, and changed how we listen to sound, music and the world.

What is Delia Derbyshire Day?

Delia Derbyshire Day (often abbreviated “DD Day”) is an annual celebration of her life, work and legacy.

• It is organised by the charity of the same name.

• Typical date: End of November

• On their website you’ll find events, educational resources, interactive games, and ways to share your school’s work.

Website: deliaderbyshireday.com 

Game (and sound-bank) link: You can explore the “Deliaphonica” game — where participants submit “Delia-n sounds” to a sound-bank and experiment with them.

Why this matters for primary schools

• Creativity & Discovery: Delia’s work invites playful experimentation with sound. Children can imitate her approach: everyday objects, found sounds, tape-loops (or their digital equivalents) yield musical magic.

• STEM/STEAM links: Her technical processes (sound waves, filters, tape-editing) link well to computing, science and digital music.

• Representation & Inspiration: A female pioneer in a male-dominated field — great for showing children that music, technology and innovation are open to everyone.

• Performance & Composition: Use her story as a springboard to composition projects: “How might we create our own ‘Doctor Who theme’ using found sounds?”

• Celebration & School Culture: Hosting a DD Day activity aligns with wider school culture, gives you a hook for assemblies, whole-school days, cross-curricular links (history, computing, art).

  
  

How your school can champion Delia in 2025

Here are some actionable ideas you can adapt into your planning or as a specific cross-phase project:

1. Sound-hunt activity: Ask pupils to collect “found sounds” around school (doors, taps, footsteps, boxes). Then in pairs or groups, create short sound-collages inspired by Delia’s methods.

2. Deliaphonica game: Use the link above so pupils can load their own sounds into the sound-bank and experiment with loops. It’s a fun digital/computing crossover.

3. Compose & share: Using classroom tech (iPads, Chromebooks, GarageBand/ChromeAudio etc), children design their own “space-theme” or “everyday-objects” soundtrack. Share it on your school website or social media for DD Day.

4. Cross-curricular links:

   • Computing: Explore how sounds are edited, layered, filtered.

   • Science: Sound waves, pitch, timbre, what happens when you reverse tape or stretch a sound.

   • History: Situated in the 1960s and 70s; explore changes in daily life through these years.

   • Art/DT: Build your own “sound-object” instruments (lampshade, tin can, rubber band box) — much in the spirit of Delia’s approach.

5. Champion in a newsletter or school blog: Feature Delia, include photos of the pupils’ work, link to the DD Day website, invite parents to hear work and join a listening session.

6. BBC Ten Pieces have some fantastic lesson plans and resources linked to the Doctor Who Theme suitable for KS2 here.

   
   

Musician of the Month Resources

• Launch our assembly: Introduce Delia — her story, her work, why she matters. Play a snippet of the Doctor Who theme, then invite children to imagine how it was made (no synthesiser, just tape loops!).

• Knowledge Organisers and Quizzes: Read more deeply into the key events of her life and take a quiz to see what children can remember.

• 1960s Technology: In this activity, children look at images from a variety of 1960s technologies and try to work out what they are and how they work.

• Key Vocabulary Word Search: Children complete a word search based on key vocabulary to do with Delia Derbyshire. There are a few to choose from to challenge your classes.

• Book Suggestions, Music Videos and Similar Musicians are all included too!

  www.musicianofthemonth.co.uk

  
  

If ever there was a figure who represents curiosity, ingenuity and creativity in music education, it’s Delia Derbyshire. By integrating her story into your school’s music programme you’ll open doors to sound-play, cross-disciplinary links and pupil-owned composition. And crucially, you’ll be giving your children a role-model they might never have heard!

Delia Derbyshire Day 2025 activities will take place on Saturday, November 22 and Saturday, November 29. The main Manchester event is on November 22 at 2:00 pm, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Delia Derbyshire Day charity. An additional event will be held in South Cumbria on November 29. 

• November 22, 2025: Main event in Manchester at the Central Library, with family-friendly creative activities.

• November 29, 2025: A live event with Full of Noises in South Cumbria