COOL VOICES SING OUT AT GLEBE SCHOOL

Local Charity Funds A New School Choir

1.  

   Workshop leader Kim Perkins leads the Cool Voices choir during rehearsals

 

Project For Local

Special Needs

School

 

Students at Glebe

School, Bromley have started

the year with something to sing about. Local charity Community Music In Action

(CMIA) are funding a project to start a new school choir for the students.

 

Experienced music workshop leader

Kim Perkins will spend eight weeks over the spring term running lunchtime choir

sessions and recruiting new members to join through a series of singing taster

sessions with different classes across the school.

 

Glebe School

is a foundation secondary special school for students aged 11–19. The students

have Statements of Special Educational Needs with many diverse needs. Music

staff have previously struggled to entice students to join in with singing

activities outside of lessons, so the project will aim to encourage enthusiasm

for singing and set up a choir that pupils enjoy and that can last beyond the

end of the funded CMIA project. Teachers and teaching assistants will attend

the sessions so that they can take over the leading of the choir at the end of

project, leaving a lasting legacy for the school.

 

The choir will sing a repertoire

of pop/rock/chart songs arranged for choirs and will work towards a performance

at the end of the spring term. The idea of the choir was launched at the

School's first  assembly after the Christmas

break, encouraging all students to join in and sign up.  Particular students who are gifted

singers/musicians have also been personally invited, but the opportunity is

open to everyone.

 

The project is now in it's second

week and more students attended the lunchtime rehearsal than the previous week,

despite the prospect of lunchtime snowballing! Calling themselves 'Cool Voices'

Kim has started to get the children to perfect harmonies on songs like Jessie

Jay's 'Price Tag' and a great 'Singing In The Rain/Under My Umbrella'

mash-up. To help them improve Kim too a live recording, which the kids loved

hearing back. Taster singing sessions follow the voluntary lunchtime session to

encourage more to join the choir, and it certainly seems to be working, one boy

who claimed "I hate singing" at the beginning of the session was

tapping his feet and singing the chorus by the end and has already said he will

be back next week!

 

Community Music in Action (CMIA) is a local charity

founded by members of Beckenham-based community choir FUNdamentally GOSPEL. The

choir launched the charity in July 2011 when they realised how the benefits

they had gained from making music together could be passed back to their local

community. The aim of CMIA is to fund and run at least three music projects a

year in Bromley and neighbouring boroughs, targeting vulnerable and

disadvantaged groups of people. The projects are led by experienced musicians

and professional workshop leaders along with volunteers from the choir and are

tailored to each partner's needs and requirements. Last year CMIA ran projects

with Riverside Specialist

School in St Paul's

Cray, Bromley Alzheimer's Society and Drumbeat ASD

School in Lewisham, with

over 100 people participating and benefiting from their work. The project with Glebe School

is their largest to date.