Reflections on the Learning - The Lion Sleeps Tonight

This is the final post in the series about our international music collaboration between our 3 Catholic Schools – Santa Sophia Catholic College, St Luke’s Catholic College and Chisholm Catholic Primary School with Brightshiners Junior School in Nairobi – Kenya.

In my very first post, Flipping the Music Learning – My Class in Kenya, I outlined the learning and you can view the teaching and feedback videos on that post. At that stage of the project (term 1 2020) I had been teaching the children in Nairobi and supporting the teachers there by remote learning for 12 months.

The next step was to engage my year 9 elective music class at Santa Sophia Catholic College in their Project Based Learning to arrange the parts for the singers at Chisholm Catholic Primary School and at Brightshiners Junior School in Kenya. The year 9 music class also recorded a guide track that everyone could practise with. This track was played to all the participants, including the children at Brightshiners.

During term 3 2020, we rehearsed the string orchestra and ukuleles at St Luke’s Catholic College, the ensemble and choir at Chisholm Catholic and the strings at Santa Sophia Catholic College – of course the year 9 music class continued to arrange, perform, record and collate recordings. The video below shows the process.

Then finally, the end product

And then, the students from our 3 Catholic schools reflect on their learning, with a word from Pastor Alfred; Director and Founder of Brightshiners Junior School, Nairobi.

Brightshiners Junior School in Nairobi are still very much in need of support. Before Christmas, the Kenyan Ministry of Education is planning to reopen schools. Pastor Alfred has secured some timber to build desks but is asking for support to help transport the timber and then to build the school desks. Basic classroom furniture is what they need now to reopen the school. Click here to go to the fundraising website that has been setup by some students in Singapore. Any donations will help.