A positive start to the new school year

It is a great relief that across the country we are starting the school year with most states back in the classroom, and others heading back onto school grounds in the next couple of weeks.

We understand the pressure on school leaders and teachers as they navigate a new set of COVID conditions, and our focus at The Song Room is to help ease the strain. For those schools fortunate to have a Song Room program, our Teaching Artists onsite will accelerate continuous, high-quality learning for students, and provide an extra layer of support for schools navigating health and safety requirements and an expected increase in teacher absences.

What drives us is our understanding of what is needed right now to address the worsening education gap, exacerbated by the pandemic. It is time to get back into the classroom. It’s time for children to connect to the activities they love, to try new things, to form new friendships, to grow. It is time for young people to recover and rediscover the joy of learning.

Along with our regular arts learning programs, we are delighted that in 2022 we will launch a new Song Room program called Kaleidoscope. Thanks to support from the Victorian Government’s Positive Start in 2022 initiative we will partner with the Department of Education and Training to deliver an arts-based social and emotional learning program for at-risk students in Victorian primary schools. If you are interested in learning more about this free program for your school please get in touch.

Our work this year will be undertaken safely and effectively, with health precautions in place to minimise risk to our team and the school communities we are working with.

In line with governments’ recommendations for education workers and students to undertake regular COVID testing, The Song Room has independently sourced RATs to enable our entire team of Teaching Artists to also test regularly and safely work onsite in schools throughout this term.

Of course, our hard work to get back on-site could not be achieved without support from our incredible funding partners. Long term partners like JB HiFi and Lotterywest have enabled us to be flexible and responsive in our approach throughout the pandemic. We are also thrilled to have embarked on new partnerships with Louis Vuitton and The Athlete’s Foot.

The Athlete’s Foot started the new school year with a generous initiative where $1 from every pair of their Alpha school shoes sold is donated to The Song Room. The Song Room also featured in their back to school advertising campaign. We are extremely grateful for their fantastic support.

We look forward to working with all of our partners in 2022 to deliver powerful arts learning experiences that will reconnect students and their communities at this critical time.

Providing an inclusive, creative and rich learning environment this year is essential for children’s recovery from the effects of COVID-19. Every child deserves the opportunity to flourish. That opportunity starts with arts learning.

If you would like to learn more about any of our programs, please get in touch.