By Derek Schlennstedt
PRIMARY school students across the country are busy practicing for the Music: Count Us In initiative.
Created in 2006 by Music Australia, the Count Us In initiative is celebrating its 10th year and is Australia’s biggest schools program.
The program encourages young people to become passionate about music and music education and has students from across the country singing the same song, on the same day.
Last year over half a million students from over 2100 schools joined the program to be a part of a united ensemble.
One of the many schools taking part in the initiative will be the Yarra Valleys own Yering Primary School.
The school has been involved with the initiative since its inception and in past years percussion instruments and actions have been included in to accompany the singing.
Yering Primary School will come together as a whole to sing this year’s song ‘Let It Play’; a song which the students say is their favourite and demonstrates the importance of music.
“When I listen to music or play it, it feels like a different place to me, it’s somewhere where I can be myself,” said student Shannyn.
All the students involved are excited to be part of the Count Us In program and have been enthusiastically practicing in preparation for celebration day on 3 November, music teacher Deanna Cole said.
“It’s a fantastic program which is done for the kids by the kids, they write the songs, they sing the song and then they also play it,” Ms Cole said.
“We really enjoy being a part of it, and the students love it,”
Each year students from all across the country are chosen to write next year’s song, this year’s ‘Let it play’ was written by four student songwriters – Stella Kelly, Tom Meadows, Bonnie Staude and Breanna Truscott.
Working directly with schools and teachers, Music: Count Us In exists to assist teachers in providing quality music education and to address the gap in specialist music education provision in many Australian schools.
Students from all across Australia will be singing their hearts out in November and the students at Yering Primary School will be among them.
Although celebration day is just around the corner, schools can still lend their voices to the call for quality music education by registering for free at the Music Australia website.
