In Year 3 we have been listening to and exploring the meaning behind the lyrics of the song Rise Up by Andrea Day. We used the positive messages within the song, such as ‘rise up’, ‘we have each other’ and ‘all we need is hope’, to produce our own affirmation PowerPoint and displayed them in our mindfulness area. We worked as a class to develop our own actions using a combination of BSL and our own ideas for actions to accompany the lyrics and performed these as a group. The children have been very passionate about this project and enjoyed working together on the activities. Overall, it has had a positive impact on our resilience and determination to work through difficult times and I can often hear the children quoting the lyrics to support each other.

In Year 3/4, we chose the song ‘Glow’ by Ella Henderson as the focus for our New Beginnings Music Project. We thought the lyrics represented ourselves as Soldiers of Light in the family of God, linking the project to RE and our Catholic faith. We identified what the lyrics meant to us personally and discussed how they were relevant in today’s current situation, with Covid and the Pandemic. We talked about how we are the shining light of the future. We then created a ‘Glow’ display which showcased our art, using the lyrics from the chorus. We learned drumming rhythms which we played in the background of the song and learned to sing the melody. We also decided to have a photo shoot in the Our Lady Grotto. This project generated some really meaningful conversation between the children. We have loved it!

We listened to and appraised the song as a whole class. The children enjoyed the upbeat tempo and message of the song. They felt empowered by the lyrics. We thought about the things we like and dislike in our school. The children drew and labelled their perfect school. We thought about the things we would put in it and what behaviour we would like to see. We also thought about what it should feel like when we come to school. We linked our learning to the Kindness Ambassadors we already have and how this is helping our school. The children produced some artwork about things that were at ‘The Heart of the Matter’. Ideas or behaviours they individually thought were the most important. During P.E. a group of children interpreted the lyrics and choreographed a small dance to use in the presentation of their learning.

Our performance of the song 'Refuge' is inspired by the work we did in class during Summer 1 in literacy and PE. Our class text for English was The Journey (by Francesca Sanna and endorsed by Amnesty International) about a family who flees their war torn country for safety. In Guided Reading lessons, we read non-fiction texts about the refugee crisis and used our knowledge to write a non-chronological report. We therefore found the lyrics to the song Refuge extremely poignant and as really resonated with all of us, which helped us to perform with emotion and empathy. Our Dance unit in PE last term was called Heroes where we learned strong and powerful moves such as the V jump, proud walk and strong stature, which we thought represented the strength, bravery and resilience of refugees around the world. We incorporated these into our dance routine to go with the lyrics.

For our new beginnings project, we learned the song 'Rise Up'. The lyrics made us think about how we can 'rise up' in our lives and as some of us are leaving St Joseph's this year, we adapted the lyrics to match our feelings about this big change. We used a mix of small group singers and the whole class singing in unison to create a range of dynamics. The song made us think about how we feel about moving on into high school and our dreams and aspirations for the future so we decided to make some artwork to go with our song. We were inspired by Pop Artist Andy Warhol and so we used his style to create some digital artwork. We recorded our song and used IMovie to combine our music and art in a video and we love the final result! It was lovely to see what everyone wanted to be when they are older and how some of us aspire to be happy, kind and passionate in whatever we decide to do.

For our project, we decided we wanted to write our own song about transition to high school. We started by writing the lyrics together as a class. We thought about all the feelings we might have and how moving to high school is a new beginning. Then we worked with Mr Brown to put the harmony to the song and identify the chords that would work. We then played a variety of instruments on the iPads using Garage Band. We layered the different parts together to create our final song. We then sang our lyrics to the tune.