Primary pupils release charity song
The Primary 7 pupils at Bridgend Primary School in Alness have released a Christmas charity song to raise funds for Children In Need. Merry Christmas from Zoombaey is now available to download and all proceeds will go to the Children In Need Charity.
Last year, while in P6, the pupils created the imaginary island of Zoombawey as a context for learning about human rights, politics, science and energy and to generate topical debates. As part of the project they wrote lyrics for a Christmas song that was performed as part of the school Christmas show.
This year their teacher Paul Oparka roped in music students from the North Highland College to work with the pupils to record a version of the song which has now been released. All proceeds will go to Children in Need.
Peter Noble, Course Leader of Music and Sound Production at the North Highland College Alness campus said: “We were delighted to get involved and help the children record the single. It has given our music students the opportunity to see a project through from start to finish. I enjoyed seeing the different ages working together. We recorded a few different versions and it was great to get constructive and frank feedback from the P7 class. A lot of hard work and effort from everyone involved was needed to get the song produced in a tight deadline but when we saw the delight on the primary kids faces when they heard the completed song, it was worth it.”
The P7 class have set up a press team, an artistic team and a finance team to promote and market Merry Christmas From Zoombawey.
Their teacher Paul Oparka said: “Creating the island has really motivated and inspired the children to learn about world issues and it has been a very creative catalyst to promote discussion and debate. The step from writing to recording, producing and releasing the song has been huge and the young people have learnt a lot, especially from working with the music students. I would like to thank everyone involved for thie commitment and their time. The song is very catchy so we hope people will help us raise funds for Children in Need."
Merry Christmas from Zoombawey is available now on itunes, Amazon Music, Xboxmusic, Googleplay and Spotify https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/merry-christmas-from-zoombawey-single/584449507
Shonagh – “Last year we set up our Imaginary Island of Zoombawey on a planet in a faraway galaxy. We created characters that had different jobs and skills and thought about how each of us could contribute to life on the island.
“We learned a lot about human rights and how we would make our island a good place to live.
“We learned about various topics on earth and thought about how we could use what we learned to improve life on Zoombawey. For example we learned about ways of generating power that would be renewable, sustainable and environmentally friendly.
“We also thought about how we could celebrate Christmas on our Island and wrote the song for the Christmas Concert last term.”
Megan – “We learned about politics in the UK and chose a government who made decisions about various issues on Zoombawey. We then had an intense debate around these issues and learned a lot about politics and how it works.
“We then decided to release Merry Christmas from Zoombawey as a Christmas single to support Children in Need.
“Mr Oparka then asked the North Highland College if they could help out and they were excited about the project.
“After that, we all planned how we would like the track to be arranged and Mr O went down to the studio with a small group of pupils to record the backing tracks. The pupils who went to the college with Mr O had to write an application for the job that identified the skills and qualities they had that would make them good documentary makers.
“The group that went down with Mr O made a documentary about their visit that has been shared with all pupils so everyone has learned about what we have been up to.
“The following week we all went down to the college to record the vocal parts. We had a group of specialist singers who recorded the main vocal and the whole class then squeezed into the studio to record the whole piece together.
“Joe the Janny and Mr O then recorded their small part but we decided to cut Mr O out of the video for obvious reasons.
“The students at the college then worked up a few different mixes of the single and we choose our favourite for release. We really enjoyed working with the staff and students from the college and could not have done this without their help. We would like to thank them for all their help and for being such good fun to work with. “
Dan – “Cathey, Shonagh’s mum, also came down to the studio to record footage of the visit. Cathey then came in to school and worked with small groups to edit together a video to accompany our single. We then did some illustrations that Cathey was able to edit into the video for us. We think she did a wonderful job and are very grateful for the time she given to help us.
We also worked in groups at drama to create a dance to accompany our single in the hope that we might inspire a similar phenomenon to Gangnam Style.
Mr O asked one of his friends to do the artwork for the single and we think he did a fantastic job and really captured what the track is all about.
"Now we are busy marketing our single and have various groups in the class who are responsible for different parts of the project. We are the Press Officers and we also have an artistic team, a marketing team and a finance team who will be crunching the numbers to find out how much we have raised.
"So please enjoy our Christmas Single that is available now on itunes, Amazon Music, Xboxmusic, Googleplay and Spotify."