This Year’s Uplifting Projects in Primary Schools
Music stars in the making at Larkspur Community Primary School
Two different year groups at Larkspur Community Primary School created brilliantly inventive music videos. Both songs were guided by song writer and musician Ziad Jabroo, the videos were filmed and animated by Jeremy Bradfield and the project was produced by Lucie Brownlee.
Cool World was written and performed by Year 4 pupils. The video begins with a raffle, where a lucky winner gets a tour of Area 51. This turns out to be a very uneventful tour until she meets an alien who wants to go home because Earth is boring! The song is a way of convincing the alien that there are so many wonderful places to visit on Earth and so many great things to do in these places. Of course, the real meaning of the song is to convey the message that the world is a big and wonderful place, so don’t limit yourself to staying in one place; get out there and explore!
Bugsy believe was written and performed by Year 6 pupils at Larkspur Community Primary School in Gateshead. The video begins with one of the pupils asking for directions to the university and being told by a very grumpy older person that they shouldn’t bother even trying as they’ll never amount to anything. As the pupil wonders what is the point of trying, Bugsy (a dog – named after one of the pupil’s dogs), tells him that he should believe in his dreams and not give up. The song is, in a nutshell, about just that; don’t be afraid to aspire, dream big and go for it and if things get tough, don’t give up.
In July, the pupils, parents and staff of Larkspur Community Primary School attended a premier of the music videos in the Electra Screen at The Tyneside Cinema. Ziad Jabroo led a sing along before they watched the videos. All were delighted at how the videos turned out, staff and parents were very proud of the pupils and the hard work they had put into them.
Audio adventures at Kelvin Grove Primary School
Children from Kelvin Grove School in Gateshead worked with writer Emily Wiseman and producer Lucie Brownlee to produce a series of five podcast episodes entitled ‘Kelvin Grove Audio Adventurers‘. The audio production was by Calum Howard.
Kelvin Grove School has a rich cultural diversity with pupils from all over the world and the children were keen to share their stories and celebrate their diversity.
Each episode takes the form of an interview where the children talk to each other about their memories of the countries they were born in, taking us on an audio adventure through Nigeria, Gaza, Czechia, Libya and Spain, vividly describing the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and cultures of each country.
In June, the pupils, parents and staff attended a ‘podcast listening party’ at The Baltic in Gateshead, where they used silent disco headphones to listen to their podcast episodes, cocooned in the relaxing environment of the centre’s sensory room. The pupils listened with focus to their own and their friends’ stories, with one student saying, “It felt nice to hear about other people’s stories because then it helped me imagine how it felt.”
Image: students from Larkspur Community Primary School with Emily Wiseman on Millenium Bridge, after their listening party at The Baltic.