What a year! Highlights, collaboration and new partners

Welcome to the end of a huge year!  Our wins this year have been all the sweeter because of the many challenges we’ve overcome as a community supporting vulnerable children, parents, teachers and schools. Thank you to our collaborators, contributors and creators for their partnership and support. The impact of our combined effort this year is both inspiring and impactful.

This year, once again, the pandemic provided The Song Room team with opportunities to excel. The Arts Learning team hosted 34 professional development sessions for teachers. 24 were delivered online, 11 related specifically to online teaching and nine related to wellbeing and social and emotional learning. They also moved heaven and earth to ensure any disruptions to face-to-face learning were met with tools and training to support learning from home.

Through the generous support of Lotterywest in 2021, we developed a suite of online resources in a new Deadly Arts Collection on ARTS:LIVE. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led resources will be launched in January 2022 to provide teachers with cultural learning videos and lessons that will allow them to bring the histories, cultures, and experiences of the First Peoples of Australia into their classroom.

By the end of the school year we were able to celebrate our programs and Community projects in-person in every state.

Here is a very small snapshot of some of our projects in action:

Deadly Arts Concert, WA – supported by Lotterywest:

In a community celebration, over 400 students from six schools came together in concert to share their learning in Noongar culture. Students stormed the stage to dance to the Six Seasons Song at the end.

TLC Music program, SA – supported by Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE) and SA Department for Education:

Transformational Learning through Creativity (TLC) provided a positive learning environment that supported students’ curiosity, creativity and social and emotional learning in five schools on the Limestone Coast.

Clifton Creek Primary School, VIC – supported by Victorian Department of Education and Training and VicHealth’s Re-imaging Health Grant:

Students and staff from bushfire affected Clifton Creek are finding joy and helping to rebuild their community through music and art with The Song Room. Students are working on a tree sculpture to represent growth that will welcome the community to their new school, rebuilt this year.

TLC Music program, Tasmania – supported by DESE and Third Link:

The Glen Huon and Geeveston primary schools came together to celebrate, connect and share their learning in a day of creativity that saw students and teachers from both schools collaborate in music workshops and perform in a community concert.

Thank you to all of our partners who supported us to deliver these and many more programs in 2021. Whilst this was a challenging year, with their assistance we were able to bring joy and great learning to thousands of students across the country.

We are pleased to also welcome a new partner to The Song Room community. In 2022, we will commence a three year partnership  with The Athlete’s Foot. This generous team have committed to donating $1 from every pair of Alpha School Shoes sold from January 2022. We are looking forward to commencing this exciting partnership next year.

Thank you again for being such an important friend of The Song Room. We look forward to creating and collaborating with you in 2022.