Your donations are enabling The Song Room to deliver a music and creative arts project that enhances school engagement, learning outcomes, socio-emotional well-being and community connections at Whittington Primary School.
The Song Room received a $17,000 grant from the Give Where You Live Foundation to engage children aged 5-12 in creative learning experiences, improve educational outcomes and close the education equity gap. The Song Room delivers a 12-month music education program to students at Whittington primary school as well as engage their parents and develop skills and capacity of generalist teachers.
Through the support of the Give Where You Live Foundation, The Song Room have been able to develop a music program that would increase student engagement with their learning, self-awareness, social dynamics and creativity through song. It appears to be working, with one student crafting this hilarious rhyme:
“Before you came into our lives.
Our singing gave people hives!
Thanks for all that you’ve done.
You make singing really fun.”
Teaching Artist Adelle Gregory has spent time working with students and school teachers to develop foundations of musical concepts. Students have been working together, learning songs by repetition and echo techniques to improve listening, collaboration, literacy, familiarity with lyrics, and reading comprehension through white board exercises.
Some schools in our community are not able to allocate adequate resources to support their students’ creative learning. This is not the case at Whittington, whose Principal, Craig Smith, understands the benefits a creative education can have on children:
“Whittington Primary School is committed to the arts. As some members of the Geelong community would know, construction work is currently underway for new teaching and learning spaces at Whittington including an art room and a music room. Due for completion at the end of 2018, we will finally be able to provide the children with the necessary modern space to express themselves through creativity. We look forward to transitioning into our new building facilities in 2019 by embedding music and performance within the school culture and student life.”