Primary Schools Nature Sings Project

A Primary Schools Partnership Project in conjunction with The Three Choirs Festival.

Working alongside the Three Choirs Festival Directors, King's School Worcester Director of Music led a joint partnership project culminating in a choral concert in Worcester Cathedral. The event was designed to coincide with the launch of the Three Choirs Festival Programme for Summer 2024.

Visiting five primary schools over the course of the Autumn Term 2024, the Director of Music taught over 150 local school children who then joined forces with King's Worcester as well as one of the King's Worcester Prep Schools. King's St Alban's to perform in the concert.

There are plans to repeat the concert during the Three Choirs Festival week in August.

Aims

The King's School, Worcester in partnership with The Three Choirs Festival aimed to provide an exclusive opportunity to Worcester schools to come together in a celebration of singing and music.

There is very little provision for music in primary schools across Worcestershire and none of the primary schools involved having a music specialist or singing specialist to provide high quality education.

In excess of 150 pupils from five different primary schools opted to participate in the project with all of the schools proving to be extremely receptive to the support from the King's Worcester Director of Music. The children clearly enjoyed learning the music and relished the opportunity to perform in Worcester Cathedral with an audience of over 500. The weekly sessions teaching and encouraging the children to get involved were vital to it's success.

The immediate beneficiaries are the children who have had specialist music provision provided for them for 6 weeks. The schools will have benefitted from singing being a normal part of the curriculum for this term. The Three Choirs Festival have benefitted from partnering with King's School Worcester to provide the resources, facilities (school site between rehearsal and concert) and logistical planning.

Background

The project came to fruition as a result of the Director of Music's close links with the Three Choirs Festival.

This is a one off event as the Three Choirs Festival will be taking place in Worcester during Summer 2024. It may be repeated in 2027 when the Three Choirs Festival returns to Worcester.

Resources

The critical resource to the success of this partnership was the time devoted by King's Worcester, Director of Music alongside some administration support provided by the King's Worcester Partnerships Team.

School facilities were used on the day of the event, to include dining hall, playground and College Hall. Support for the event used both teaching and non-teaching staff over the course of the Autumn Term 2024.

Impact

At present, we are unable to access any qualitative assessment for the partnership however, this is in the pipeline however, the concert has received some fabulous feedback to date and was a huge success.

Pupil Involvement

In addition, to the choirs of King's School Worcester (23 pupils) and King's St Alban's (47 pupils) singing in the concert, 3 pupils from King's School Worcester performed the accompaniment for the concert. Pupils ranged from Year 5 to Year 8, both boys and girls.

Frequency

The concert was a single event.